Good Day Sunshine

Jon and Paul enjoying a sunny morning











Mike and Paul (Music 101)









God is more generous in His love and mercy than I will ever be able to comprehend. I know this from first hand experience, but I experienced it again. Even after I demonstrated how weak in faith I was, after a very long and despair-filled day yesterday (Wednesday). I could not stop crying. All of a sudden, after all this time, I really took notice of the pictures of Paul that we have around the house and saw his beautiful smiling face. It only made me miss the Paul of November 10th, with no thoughts of hope that we will see that again. When I walked to the mail box I cried again when I realized how much I missed seeing his car parked in the driveway and his getting out and calling out "Hey Mom" as he strolled to the front porch. I was ovewhelmed with how much I missed his almost constant playing of his guitars and piano, as I walked into the music room where all 8 guitars sit. I remembered complaining how these were taking up so much room. Hindsight can be very helpful, in this case it caused a great amount of guilt for me. I have been so blessed that none of my sons caused us one moment of grief with staying out late, drinking to excess, or even 'adventuring' into the area of drugs. And I had complained about too many guitars in the room. I cried when I walked into his room and saw his very weakened body, down to 117 pounds. I had to leave the room and go outside so I could cry long and hard. I prayed very hard to the Blessed Mother to help me find the strength to cope with these sudden feelings that flooded my mind. I know that I have been so busy that I have not really had time to work through my grief and sadness of this event, but I was unprepared for the amount of despair that ensued.

That night,Mike asked Paul to take a ride with him in his truck, with the dog, so they could get out for a few minutes. Paul said no, but I motioned to Mike to just help Paul get up on his feet and then had him put Paul's coat on and gently guide him out the door. If we waited for Paul to say 'okay' to anything that makes him put out energy, we would never see him stand again. So Mike got him all bundled up and they went out for a 20 minutes ride. While they were gone, I looked at Jon and again started to cry. He admitted he too has been feeling despair about how it appears Paul might never recover any better than what we were seeing. We talked about our fear that what we were seeing was our future. Both of us felt incredible sadness as we talked, but I am the one who actually walked out on God for some moments. I started to question where God was and that I felt duped. I even said that I should not write anything more on the post since it appeared all these prayers were for naught. I let my despair-filled questions pour out and all of a sudden I was very angry that we just might be all alone in this. Jon sat quietly while I kept posing all my questions of uncertainty. (He is truly my blessing, as he did not join in this madness!) When I finally sat down and felt totally defeated and too tired to care any more, he said he too missed Paul so much. After telling me what his thoughts were, I realized I had let the fatigue and the constant care of Paul wear me down and that God was with us, and that even if I felt alone, I knew in my heart I am not. Then I felt very bad that I had let Satan get the better of me in those moments. I was so sad that I had not been constant in my faith and hope, in this God who saved my son and had brought so many people into our pathway to pray and help us. I prayed that I would be forgiven.

Thursday morning I was so elated and thankful to see how quickly I was. When I got up, only love welled up in my heart as I looked at Paul, and I felt refreshed and ready to get on with the care of my son. I went downstairs to cook a good breakfast for him, even though I knew he might not eat any of it. I was waiting for the stove to get hot, and so I walked out the dining room onto the deck, into the crisp, chilly morning. The sun was shining through the trees and it was absolutely beautiful. I thanked God for this sight and apologized again for losing all trust in Him the night before. As I walked back in, I noticed how the light from the sun shining on a crystal hurricane lamp was reflected out in different directions around the room. The rays of light were of different colors also due to the prisms of the crystal. It immediately came to my mind how I needed to pray to be more like that cyrstal - allowing God to shine through me and let His light go out in all directions. The light is what made the cyrstal candle holder beautiful. I need only His light to serve the purpose He has intended for me. I was so filled with love for God - and again experienced His message of love and mercy in that moment. As I brought breakfast up to Paul, it came to my mind to pray the readings of the daily Mass to him before he ate. The gospel for the day is Mark 7:24-30. I then read the explanation of this reading which came from a writing called THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING (how appropriate). It was written in the 14th century and states "It is inevitable that ideas will arise in your mind and try to distract you in a 1000 ways. They will question you saying "What are you looking for, what do you want?" To all of these thoughts you must reply, "God alone I seek and desire, only Him." If your thoughts question you who this God is, tell them that He is the God who created you, redeemed you and brought you to this work. Say to your thoughts, "you are powerless to grasp Him. Be still." Dispel them by turning to Jesus with loving desire. Don't be surprised if your thoughts seem holy and valuable for prayer. Then will come ideas about His great kindness, and if you keep listening they will be delighted.
A person who has long pondered distracting things must eventually leave them behind beneath a cloud of forgetting if he hopes to pierce the CLOUD OF UNKNOWING that lies between him and his God. Raise your heart to God with a gentle stirring of love. Think only of God, the God who created you, redeemed you and guided you to this work. Allow no other ideas about God to enter your mind. Yet even this is too much. A naked intent toward God, the desire ofr him alone is enough."

This was God answering me with through His word. Then later in the day, I received a card from my friend(Judy Hammond) from my college days. In it is the reading from John 14:18.

"I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you." More confirmation. Yes, Jesus is the way, the truth and the light. Praise be to our merciful and loving God. His love does endure forever and I thank Him for helping me hold on to what I know in my heart is true.

Okay! I know I have held you up this long and I need to tell you about Paul.
He saw the neurologist today for an assessment. She spent 45 mintues with him and is encouraged by how much more he talked today and how clear it sounded. I guess I didn't notice since I am with him every day. He is very weak, and our number one priority is to get weight back on. She is going to have a nutritionist do a consultation with Paul while he is in therapy hopefully by Monday. They will get him a more useful type of feeding mix, with more calories and protein. She is still very encouraged about his progress in with being able to be on the computer instant messaging his friends. He is able to stay fairly focused on it for about 15 - 20 minutes, then his brain tires and he then goes into other areas of his computer and wanders around, without much purpose. This is a sign he is done. They will use a walker while he is at Pathways, and she said to not be discouraged, she just doesn't want him to use up energy for walking when there is so much else to accomplish with him. They will also schedule rest periods in between his therapies so that he will not become too weakened while he is there. She wants to get him in therapy as often as possible. He will just have to have rest times during the day. He is going tomorrow from 9-12. I will know his schedule for next week tomorrow (Friday). He may only go for a couple days, but we are all on the same page about getting his strength back up so that he can get back on track with his recovery. She also said to sit him at the piano everyday and have him play his guitar. Paul was able to play some scales with both hands and this is an awesome thing she said. He has the ability to do cross over commands, which means that his right and left brain are working in connection with each other. She did some other assessment tests and does not feel he has lost anything other than strength. God's hand surrounding Paul with love and protection, to be sure.

"Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you and is able to save your souls."
Our love to all,
Jon and Rebecca Fidero

We are going to be praying that Paul's paralysis is healed so that he can blink his eye