FROM THERE TO HERE

Faith Abigail Brown was my daughter. She impacted on my life so completely and deeply that even sitting here writing this feels like the equivalent of running my hand over an old scar,that twinges and spasms every now and again. No one else notices, but one that I can still feel.

I still remember even now getting the phone call from the hospital asking me to bring Petra straight in as they had gotten some alarming test results and later the doctor demanding that my wife be given more of the labor inducing drug, and yeah I guess I remember threatening to remove that doctor from the room with force. I still remember the absolute silence of Faith coming into this world before hearing the shouts of "code blue", and then passing out after watching my baby turn purple - not blue but purple.

I can remember the physical pain it caused me to hear that my wife had torn out her own drips and tried to make it to the special care nursery as she hadn't even seen her baby girl yet.

I remember everyone saying that they would work out what was wrong. She couldn't swallow, regulate her own body temp, would have an apnoea where her heart rate would drop to nearly nothing (several times we said our goodbyes only to have her soldier on and fight back), and she would turn blue. Later on we found out she lived in a constant state of seizures and was also blind.

I can remember the many "battles" we had within the day to day pains of our normal lives. The world didn't stop and I can recall thinking how could this world be so cruel and surely I must buckle under the pressure. Nine months of testing, no answers (to this day her condition has remained undiagnosed) and endless doctors and specialist visits. I remember a terrible lonesomeness as my "awkward" situation drove my "friends" away. 

The horrific pain of having her die in my arms (which sometimes revisits me in nightmares even now). I was 23 when I buried my daughter, I had failed. Everything about the role of a father is to provide, protect, nurture and to help grow. I had done none of these things in my mind - none.

My son John for weeks after would ask if we could go and "dig her up now?" and that we could use his tonka tractor. Eb's made play-dough cookies and drawings for Faith for a long time.

So the weeks turned into months and the months years. Here I sit writing this. But let me tell you what else I remember. I remember that Faith used to become very still and restful whenever she laid on my belly when I watched tv, Petra used to dance with Faith in the candle light, Johnno accidentally stepped on her once in his haste to play and include her in his games... Reading her stories, Faith loved baths (although we had to make sure we didn't get her nasogastric tube in the water).

I look at my family now, the journey we have taken together and the roads we have traveled. I think of the memories we have made and the adventures we have had. not all good adventures I admit. But the older I get the more I begin to realise that the scars on the outside are proof that we are not afraid to live, the scars on the inside are proof that we aren't afraid to love...