My thirteen-year-old daughter was dying. She was bleeding to death through her menstrual cycle and over the last three years things had steadily gone downhill. She began menstruating at the age of ten.
Soon after, other things about her started to change. First, she struggled with an inability to sleep at night. She was scared. I tried to comfort her. I tried to reassure her. I tried vitamins, reiki, prayer and all the little thoughts of encouragement I could come up with. Mostly, I brushed it aside, assuming things would work themselves out, and we went on with our daily lives.
We had a full schedule with six kids in the house, including two seniors during that year when her period began to go out of control. She would bleed and bleed and bleed. Constant. I kept thinking it would let up, it would regulate itself. Then it went on for too long and I found myself at the doctor. The only solution, birth control pills. For an eleven-year-old? This seemed too much for me. I thought there must be a better way. But in desperation, we got started on the pills.
They worked for everything except her demeanor. I focused on healthy eating, exercise, and getting involved in activities. I was running wild and crazy, trying to keep up with everything; high school, home school, house, animals and farm, church callings, responsibilities, kids’ activities…the list goes on. She became more agitated, more withdrawn, more scared of the night. She still couldn’t sleep.
I decided to take her off the pill so that it wouldn’t affect her emotions so much. A few months later she is bleeding uncontrollably again. I wait it out. I hope. I pray. She keeps bleeding. I get scared. I call the doctor. She’s back on the pill again. The bleeding stops.
Now, she’s angry again. She’s hard to be around. She wants to hide in her room all day and night. She doesn’t want to participate in anything. She’s not happy. She’s not herself. I think it’s the pill. I take her off again. She is okay for a little while. Then she starts bleeding again and it doesn’t stop. She keeps bleeding.
I try all kinds of things. I try to keep her supplements up. I watch her iron. I keep going. Healthy eating, exercise, vitamins… she goes deeper down…lower and lower and lower. She keeps bleeding. It never stops. I keep trying. I keep believing. I know it’s got to stop at some point.
It doesn’t stop. She keeps bleeding.
It gets worse. She refuses to take vitamins. She can’t keep them down. I think she’s being belligerent. I try more things, more supplements, more doctors. I keep trying. Now she struggles to keep food down.
She tells us she is pansexual. I don’t know what that is. I am sick to my stomach. I wonder what I’ve let her be exposed to. I wonder what I have done wrong.
I am desperate. I ask for help. We see other doctors. We try other things. She keeps bleeding. She bleeds more and more and more.
She is dying. She can’t walk on her own. One night, while playing a video game she gets overly excited. Her nervous system breaks down and she seizures. I am so scared that night, I sleep on the floor beside her bed. I am afraid she is going to die. My heart is breaking.
She is in the depths of despair, and so am I. She doesn’t want to live. I am trying to keep her alive. I carry her. I walk with her. I hold her. I cry with her.
I am lost and frozen and hopeless. I call to ask for birth control pills. They pull her chart. They want her brought in again. I cannot take her. Her dad takes her. They check her hemoglobin. It is 2.9, more than ten points below normal. She is sent straight to the hospital. She is given blood transfusions. It is COVID-19, and I am not allowed in.
I am home and I write.
When I Believed in Heaven written for Tarena
When I believed in heaven
You stood right next to me
I looked ahead and saw the prize
I knew just where I'd want to be
It didn't matter then
I knew just how you'd be
I had no need to look your way
A plan was all laid out for me
When I believed in heaven
You stood in front of me
But I looked passed you there
Your face I did not see
For I had things to do, a checklist to complete
All the things that made me something
God would want to keep
When I believed in heaven
I knew you'd be relieved
That I was sure to do the things
That made God pleased with me
For sometime in the future
I knew there'd come a day
When I would sit beside you
And listen to what you had to say
When I believed in heaven
You may have been a ghost
For when I looked
I saw right through you
To things I thought would matter most
I spent the time
Distracted and obsessed
My works to do
Went far beyond the rest
When I believed in heaven
I imagined a day far away
When I could sit beside you
And rest from labors, all performed,
To make me be okay
When I believed in heaven
My heart was not quite right
I closed it's doors
And shut it up real tight
There'd come a day
Of that, I was quite sure
That I would open up my heart
And invite you in to stay
When I believed in heaven
I looked right passed your face
I saw your pain, but then went on
And asked God for his grace
It didn't matter much
That you suffered, all alone and scared
I didn't see that I was out of touch
That I was ill prepared
When I believed in heaven
I didn't live today
I only worked to show
My worth was on it's way
The time would come
Quite soon I knew
I wanted to prepare
You could wait, you'd be okay
My time I could not spare
When I believed in heaven
It was easy to dismiss
My love for you
Your presence, need and trust
For my blinders were so strong
I would always look right through
And never see my wrong
There was always time, I thought
I put it in my plan
that one day I'd walk beside you,
One day, I'd hold your hand
When I believed in heaven
I thought it was a far off place
I lived for then and not for now
I did not see your face
I was so busy, trying oh so hard
To work my way to heaven
So we would never part
I was so stubborn
I would not see
The truth you brought to me
When I believed in heaven
I could never see
Just how much you needed me
But you were patient, kind and true
You came to help me see
To teach me all along
You came to comfort me,
To help me to be strong
You've taught me truth
And now I understand
Heaven is right here
I hold it in my hand
I've learned from you just how to know
That heaven is the grace I give when loving all I can
When I believed in heaven
I finally realize
That it was right beside me,
I see it in your eyes
I finally found that heaven
Is not so far away
I don’t have to wait
Or look toward that day
It's here, it's now
With You
and in my heart to stay