A Wonderful, Messy Place
Is Community Chaos, Love, or a Bit of Both

by Rebecca Hill

Living in community is messy, and annoying. There are times that I want my own home, where I can control everything. I want privacy. A place where I don't have to face anyone until eight a.m. and no one knows what my bathrobe looks like. Some days Karen's kids are being so noisy and Colleen borrowed my diaper wipes without asking and beans for dinner-again? And it gets pretty easy to picture that little apartment and the car that is always parked where I left it.

But when hard times come I climb into this place like a big comfortable bed and wrap the extra blankets around me tight. Like last winter, when my kids were sick.

Well, they weren't sick, exactly. I knew there was a fifty fifty chance my boys could have my bleeding disorder, but it was a mild clotting disorder and my life had been very normal. When my oldest son was born he seemed to show symptoms. Don't worry, the doctors said. This disorder is mild. So we set about enjoying this boy, and quickly had another baby.

Then Sage started getting hurt. Just normal childhood injuries, but long hours in the emergency room told us something wasn't right. We found an expert at another hospital, and he told us Sage had very low clotting. They tested my second son, Jude, and the results were similar. Somehow my boys had a more severe form of my disorder. I was thrown into a world of doctors, hospitals, helmets, and kneepads.

The first day Jude wore his helmet I could hardly leave the room. My smiling, blue eyed seven month old now donned a padded rubber thing on is head that made him look, well, disabled. I finally got up enough courage to take him down to the dining room, and I steeled myself for everyone' reaction. I was dreading the pity, and expecting well meaning but inadvertently hurtful comments.

I was on the elevator, and my friend Misty got on. She stopped, and knelt down by Jude's stroller. She looked into his eyes and talked to him, saying, "hi handsome". Jude squirmed in delight and grinned. "You," she said tickling him under the chin, "have the best smile, ever." And she got off on the next floor.

It was one of those moments. I got off on the first floor, took my baby with me into the ladies room, and sobbed. I looked at Jude, and saw what Misty saw. Not a helmet, not a disorder. I saw my son, and he was beautiful.

But there was much to deal with, and healing to do. I was obsessing over coffee with Sarah. "You talk a lot about doctors and medical journals and gene therapy, Sarah said." You don't talk about how you feel.

I just sat there. "I can't," I said. "I know what you're thinking", she said. "Floodgates. But you gotta do it, Becca. You have to believe if you let yourself feel this, God will help you through it."

She gave me an assignment. "Pick two people. Tell them how you feel. Not about what the doctor said in clinic yesterday, but how you feel about your boys having hemophilia."

I picked Leah. She and Brian are good listeners, and their youngest daughter had been through some serious health problems, too. I was sitting in her room, late, after the kids were in bed. Leah, I said, and she seemed to sense this was important, so she leaned in close. "My heart is breaking. I feel like I'm dying." She just held my hand. I know, she said. "I know. Becca," she said, "tell God."

That became my prayer. Every bruise, every needle. "God," I'd say, "my heart is breaking. I'm dying here." And the peace would come. The peace would flow.

When Jude was in the hospital, Vic, one of the pastors, would come and sit. He would just hang out for the day. I'd feel bad, knowing he had a ton of work. "Vic, you can go, you don't have to stay." "I know," he said. He watched TV with us. I was glad. I wanted him there.

Transportation is always an issue in community. When 400 people share a small fleet of marginally reliable cars there are bound to be problems. Every time we needed to go in, I would go downstairs to the Ingersons, who would drop everything. Jennifer would come and help us get ready and Scott would go find us a car. One less thing to worry about.

I am out in the yard, watching my boys run around. I am told Jude does not have a bleeding disorder after all, but it is hard to relax. Sage's clotting is very low, however, and so the saga continues. I watch him with some anxiety, trying to have the balance and let him be a little boy.

"God knew you could do this, you know." Deb, whose kids are grown, speaks to me from behind her sunglasses. "He chose you to raise these special little boys." It is a observation made almost casually, but life changing, another moment when a light comes on and everything looks just a little different.

My sister is here from New York, visiting from her world of financial and personal independence. We are having lunch in a restaurant, her treat. (It always is, unless we want to go to McDonald's.)

"Do you think you'll ever leave?" she asks over salad. "I mean, do you ever want to do something different?"

I lean back in my chair. "No," I hear myself say. " I really don't." And at that moment, I know it's true. There just isn't much out there that could come close to what I have. This community is messy, and annoying. And it's wonderful.

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