The Great Undoing and My Journey Home

My youngest son, Sam, hands me a DVD converted from a video recorded years ago. Apprehensive, I slide it into a laptop and watch the scene from my past come to life. After viewing only part of it, he exits to do homework, pauses, and quips, “What happened to you, Mom?” Time suspends as I search for a reply.

“Life … life happened, Sam—a lot of life. Like your dad dying and you and I ending up with a genetic disorder. Muscle biopsies, spinal taps, surgeries, you know. Crazy stuff happened.” He looks my way only somewhat understanding. His seventeen-year-old, senior-in-high-school self tries on my explanation, but it doesn’t quite fit. He can’t give in so why should I? He continues up the stairs and I stand alone. Alone with the reality that the hard stuff is winning. That I caved under the pressure. That my tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed son knows who I was, compared to who I am.

A few weeks earlier, my brother-in-law, George, converted the old VCR recording into a DVD. The recording was taken only months before my first husband, Jason, died of a brain tumor when my boys were three and four, and I was a mere twenty-seven years of age. My faith was strong back then; my hope in God sure. Very sure. We had walked an incredible journey that transformed everything I knew about faith in Christ—and that Susan was on full display in the video.

However, by the time I turned forty-two, Sam and I had both been diagnosed with a metabolic disorder, explaining weak muscles and messed up nerves. During our diagnosis process two years earlier, I twisted my ankle on a pine cone and fell. A doctor reattached the torn ligament, but within weeks, intolerable pain shot down the back of my right leg.

Another surgery followed—a back surgery. Once home, I couldn’t even lift my leg to roll over in bed. In time, the floor offered comfort, a place of rest. Another reminder that my life was not what it had been.

I turn to our empty living room. The soft carpet beckons me to the floor—my favorite place to sit. Our brown leather IKEA sofa is too soft. The matching chairs tilt, too steep. So I stretch out on the floor with my legs straight in front of me, facing the TV. I slept in this place for more than three months after my back surgery. Huddled against the base of the sofa, I felt safe and warm—and could even roll over.

Some nights I still stretch out on the hard surface, my body unable to relax in the comfort of our bed. So as I sit on the carpet with my back against the front of the sofa, I am home, in my “easy chair,” in front of the TV.

My husband, Don, joins me in the living room to watch the video in its entirety. I find the DVD remote, push play, and there we are again. My small family. The family I’ve missed. The family I’ve ached to relive. Jason, the father of my children, sits beside me at our kitchen table with disheveled hair and a half-glazed stare. Our little boys come and go as we talk—as I talk—because Jason’s speech is slurred and slow.

We explain that this is our before video. Not a last will and testament kind of thing. It’s our before video because we’re waiting for a miracle. We’re expecting Jason’s body to be healed, for the brain tumor to loosen its grip on the nerves in his head. Miracles happen, you know.

So despite his altered appearance, we preach hope. We talk about God’s love. I look calmly into the camera and tell the viewers that I trust the God of heaven to do the unimaginable. I don’t cry or fall apart or seem apprehensive at all. I speak as one reassured that all is well. That life is livable in the most unbearable situations. And I wasn’t faking it.

We gather the boys and say Psalm 91 as a family. Even Sam, at two years of age, could sputter the lengthy syllables. We continue with a passage from the book of Ephesians and put on the Armor of God, with motions. Fifteen years later, I still know the words by heart, but rarely say them. Heartache has smothered hope. Fatigue has worn down confidence.

As the video ends, I lay in the silence, wondering how I lost my way. A bread crumb trail of memories leads to the place of despair.