Closed Doors

I am admittedly not very good at maintaining a blog, and it’s been almost a year since I lost Mike. I’ve been meaning write about all kinds of topics as they relate to my grief. The next few posts are going to be reflections about some of the darkest days in my life. I’m writing and sharing as part of my grieving process, so here goes.

“It’s complicated” would be my Facebook relationship status with God. My faith has been shaken so hard that sometimes I don’t know what I really believe anymore. All my doubt stems from the hardest thing for me to reconcile about Mike’s death.

When Mike went into cardiac arrest, I didn’t think he was coming back from it. Something in the air felt different, and I knew he wasn’t there anymore. I was really surprised when they were able to get his heart beating again. I spent the next five days by his side in the hospital, praying for a miracle, and wondering how long do I keep him on life support. What is a sufficient amount of time to wait for God to work a miracle? If I take him off too early, am I not trusting God enough? I was weighing these questions against what I knew Mike would want. I knew he didn’t want to be alive if he wasn’t going to be alive whole. He did not want me to keep his body alive if his mind wouldn’t return.

As it turned out, I wasn’t going to get to make any decision about how long he stayed on life support. The doctors diagnosed him as brain dead, which in Georgia is considered legally dead. He was not in a coma-there was no brain activity. I’m now well-versed in differences between comas and being brain dead and the tests they perform to makes these determinations as I watched them at least twice a day for 5 days. Nothing short of him actually waking up from his state was going to keep him on life support. That was not a decision I would get to make.

Mike was an organ donor, so once he was determined to be brain dead, the organ donation people took over. I answered a bunch of questions about his medical history. I thought that it would be great if one of his organs could be used to help another person. I remembered the day he decided to be an organ donor, and I joked with him about what organs he would be able to donate - his kidneys, pancreas, and eyes were out, but his liver was still functioning well.

One of his doctors who knew that we were trying to conceive asked if we had ever frozen his sperm, which we had not, but his being on life support would make that possible. I made a lot of phone calls to different doctors to find someone willing to perform the extraction and to find a place to keep the sample until I was ready to use it. I was able to locate a doctor in the area willing to perform the procedure even though he didn’t know me or Mike. I was at peace for the first time in days. I was heartbroken that I was losing my husband, but hopeful that he might get to save someone else and that I would maybe be able to fulfill our dream of having a child together.

Even though I knew in my spirit that Mike would never come back to me from the time the paramedics arrived to my house, I was hopeful because I thought there would be some good to come from this.

The good didn’t come.

In order for Mike’s organs to be used he needed to be kept on life support, and he still needed to be treated for kidney failure, so that his body could endure any surgery/procedures to procure his organs and sperm sample. They asked for my approval to put him on dialysis like normal, which I agreed to. They hooked him up to the machine, and I left the room while they set up. When I came back to settle in for the night, Mike’s blood pressure and his pulse were dropping. They escorted me out of the room while they worked on him, and within a few minutes, they returned to let me know that they weren’t going to do anything to revive him. His heart had been too weak to endure the dialysis. The last decision that I made is what led to his heart stopping forever.

I know it’s not my fault, but it doesn’t keep me from wondering. I knew Mike’s blood pressure often dropped while he was on dialysis, but why didn’t I remember that? I guess I wanted his body to be in its best condition if he was donor match for someone.

I felt like I saw God open a lot of doors, and then shut them all in front of me:

Mike goes into cardiac arrest, I think he’s dead on the bedroom floor, but he is resuscitated. An open door.

We never think to freeze his sperm, but it’s now possible while he is on life support. An open door.

Mike worried so much about dying without purpose, but he has the possibility to help someone through organ donation. An open door.

Mike’s heart stopped, and all those doors slammed shut.

I will never be able to reconcile this about Mike’s death, and it hurts so deeply, because I desperately wanted there to be good. And it feels like betrayal that there isn’t - at least not in the most obvious ways.

I put up a brave front and said publicly the things that I knew I should say: I was grateful for the prayers and the people that God surrounded me with. I still believed He was good and that I felt His presence close to me. I meant everything I said, but doubt bubbled beneath the surface.

I still have so many questions, and on my worst days all I can see are the closed doors. On good days, I see hope, and my faith is renewed.