Lesson Four

I have come to witness just recently that negative aspects of living invades your space whether you like it to or not. Xavier never had to deal with the negative aspects of relationships. He never experienced the pains of being misunderstood, nor was he knowledgeable about the hurt that comes with rejection, or the abuse at the hands of those who truly never saw his worth. He never had to come home crying. He never had to be disappointed.  He never had to be stood up. I say all this to say that though he never got the opportunity to experience the negative things in life, we who are abled body people have. Many of us have experienced being misunderstood, rejected, and abused. Many of us cried, sometimes all night long, and many of us have been stood up not necessarily from a date as much as stood up by the ones who we thought had our best interest at heart and really did not.

When Xavier turned a year in age, his life was altered a bit further. He had a major seizure that robbed him of his basic abilities. He stopped cooing, he could no longer drink or eat own his own, and the little personality that we saw emerging was lost during a hospital stay. He had to be put on a feeding tube. This hurt me immensely because it seemed for a moment that the hope of normalcy was taken away in a dash and I blamed the doctors who gave us the report for stealing the small thing that we had. How to move from phase to phase in life while developing and maturing is the challenge for all of us to obtain. We have successes and failures. My goal in this journey onward it to learn how to move forward.

Xavier had his surgery and we took that precious baby home almost a complete month later cherishing what we had. He was still with us feeding tube and all.

This is the fourth lesson that my grandson taught me: As hard as it is to accept change, adapting is a necessary aspect of living. We cannot change the things we do not have control over and many of the things we do, we often time manipulate it altering its effectiveness for positive change and growth. Think about it, who says ending a relationship, is a positive thing, or the loss of a job, and what about the passing of a dear loved one? How can anything positive come out of the most negative things?  When we accept what is before us and adapt to the essential, we begin to create an atmosphere for “change”. This is not easy. It is downright hard, but it is worth its weight in gold to the one who embraces it and allows it to flourish becoming the essence of who they are. It is time to look life in the eye, accept what is and what has been all while moving forward to that which shall come.

Lesson Three

Pushing through the hurt and the pain of life does not happen overnight, nor did Xavier’s progress.  He had to stay in the NICU (Intensive Care unit for infants) for a month leaning how to breathe on his own and then suck from a bottle independently before going home. He did just that and we were so elated when we got the discharge papers. Xay came home with a patch over his right eye, in attempts to build the one that was affected by his third nerve paralysis. He also had hydrocephalus, cerebral palsy, premature lungs, spasticity, seizure disorder, and eczema over most of his body.  

Fighting to live is not always a conscious decision. Sometimes it comes from the cheer fortitude of not wanting to dye. For Xavier, his fight was in his physical existence, but for many of us, it is from the emotional and psychological baggage that comes to weigh us down and handicap us along the way. Learning how to push through it all can be very challenging, but if done, is a benefit that yields great rewards.

Xavier’s first eleven months brought us so much joy. He went from not being able to do anything to following the mobile hanging from his crib, making cooing sounds, drinking from a Sippy cup, and eating stage two foods from a spoon.  He went from crying whenever he was stimulated to falling asleep while getting a bath and a rub. He accomplished one small milestone at a time not knowing which one's were right and which one's were wrong. He just did as he could do regardless to what went against the norm. 

When I reflect back over my life, I find that what held me back from so much of my potential was "myself." I made excuses for why I couldn’t, why I wouldn’t, and why I shouldn’t do a thing. All of my negatives became the evidence that I used to keep me from moving forward to where I truly wanted to be.

This is the third lesson that my grandson taught me: Negatives can only influence you when you take such negatives and allow them to become the dominate influences in your life. Yes bad things have happened, but it was my response that yielded more negative and it was also my response that would bring out the positive in any situation I found myself in. I had the power to choose. I had the power to live according to my intentions and not just live through a response.  My past experiences may have aided in decisions but at no time can I now say that they were the cause.  

Lesson Two

The very day Xavier was born, he began teaching me. As I stated, his first lesson taught me to understand that, given enough time, the hardest thing that I am being faced with can in-fact become the very thing that I wished I had throughout all eternity.

Before he came, I attempted to live my life as best I could. I committed my life to the Lord and I wanted more for me and my family. I did not want to continue living a mediocre life just existing from day to day. I did not have the answers that would cause me to live on the other side of basic; however.

As I felt his grip for the very first time, something came alive in me. Something that I never knew I needed. He was only 2 pounds and 14 ounces. We were able to hold his entire body in the middle of our hands and for several days we could only view him from afar. With tubes running everywhere, I reached into the incubator and I put my pinky into his frail palm and almost to my disbelief but also to my delight, he clutched it ever so gently. This move, this slow perhaps reactionary move, caused hope to spring alive in me. It was as if Xavier said, “grandma, I’m here and don’t count me out. I’m fighting grandma, I’m fighting to live.” I connected to him as I believe he connected to me. Thirty-seven years earlier, I myself was lying where he lay. I did not have his challenges, I had my own. Born premature, the first child of three to my parents to actually make it that far, I had to fight then as he was fighting now just to breathe.   
I left the hospital with more questions than I had when I went in. How do I now go back to yesterday and view it as I always had? How do I repair what was still broken from the results of my past? How do I bridge the gaps of generational divides? From this encounter, I somehow had been changed. I knew I had to pick up the pieces. I knew I had to mend what low self-esteem and insignificancy attempted to rob. I had to grasp hold to what I thought I would never really have. I had to declare that we all would be better than what we had ever been before. I had to learn how to fight, not from without but from within. I had to learn to breathe.

This is the second lesson that my grandson taught me: Life does not always give you what you expect but at no time is that an excuse not to push through what hurts. It is now required that I push through the pain and fight for what belongs to and for me. I have to fight for my dignity and fight for my self-respect. I must fight to mend fences and make wrongs right. It is necessary to fight to inhale, fight to exhale, fight to live, and learn how to breathe. It becomes more than just breathing in and exhaling out. It is the fortitude on the inside that goes against the doctor’s diagnoses. It is the strength to move through the tubs, and it is the courage to grasp another person’s hand when I do not even understand the world around me. It is taking the day as it has been given to me and not giving up until I mastered it instead of it mastering me. It is as I said before, learning how to breathe.... If you're reading this, what is required for me, just might be required for you also.

Lesson One

To all who are seeking for the answer to why, this may never be revealed, but the lessons along the way just might change your life as it has mine.
This is my very first blog and I believe it will take me on a new journey.

He was created like all of us were; by the hands of God, but how he entered our existence is only shared with a few. I got a phone call that shook me to my core. It was the hospital’s representative calling to tell me that my 15 year old daughter had been in a car accident. I knew it was bad because she told me to be safe in getting there but do so as quickly as I could. She would not tell me much and for a moment my heart stopped when she did say, “she is headed for surgery as we speak.”

Six months earlier, I was very disappointed when my daughter got up the nerve to tell me she had missed her cycle and thought she was pregnant. It seemed like all my attempted teaching went down the drain. A family member suggested that she abort but I would not hear of it. I tried as hard as I could to support her while not supporting the act that got her to where she was and where I had been myself so many years before. I took her to her appointments and asked her repeatedly if she was eating right and taking all her pills. Days turned into months and this 14 year old baby of mine, at the time this all began, was definitely going to have a baby of her own. I had to accept what I wished had come later while praying for the best.

When my husband and I went to a birthday celebration for an acquaintance of ours, we thought leaving and returning home would be as it had always been. We were about to go home when my cell phone rang. A million thoughts rushed through my mind but at no time would I allow myself to think the very worst. The drive seemed like it was an eternity as my heart filled my throat and my legs moved uncontrollably. I did all I could not to yell at my husband who seemed to drive at a snail’s pace.

We got to the hospital to learn that my daughter was a back seat passenger. The car she was in, drove in front of a SUV attempting to beat it, caused the accident. She was pinned in between two other people as she was in the middle. The impact broke her pelvic bone in several places and shattered her hip causing her leg to totally be displaced from her body. The baby was in danger because the force and the momentum of the impact pulled him from the placenta and crushed his skull within.

Events in life can cause great distress and they can also bring clarity to what’s most important as well. What I did not want six months ago is now what I prayed for will happen. “Lord, please allow him to live.”

Xavier Tashawn Hardy entered this world at 29 weeks gestation fighting with everything in him to live.

This is the first lesson my grandson taught me: What appears to be a burden, if given enough time, can turn into the very thing you wished you had throughout all eternity.