If you Could Change the Past Part 1

If you could go back in time, would you really change the past?

What moment would you return to, that shaped so much of your present?

Would you really make the other choice?

I would go back to the hospital intensive care with my baby in March of 2002.  What would I really change the choice I made that week?

The months that lead up to that moment were painful.  The choice was huge. The consequences, of the choice, unknown?

Do people choose what they choose because their experiences give or deplete their own wisdom? 

Or do people choose what they choose because they are who they are?

Do our experiences truly change us, or our experiences force us to discover who we really are? 

Four months prior, I was pregnant.  Even after I warned him that if we got pregnant our child would be high risk.  Even after he used force.  He was angry with me for being pregnant.  He declared that it showed how manipulative I was.  He declared the pregnancy was a ploy to trap him into marriage.  I didn’t understand, it was our fourth child.

The month before I gave birth, I said to him, “What about the children?”   “The kids are going to do, what the kids are going to do.”  Because he said I was using the kids to control him, I was afraid to speak of their needs.  Yet every night I cried for them confused.  I cried for their future. I believed that a whole family would serve them better than anything.  I was willing to sacrifice anything for that.  Well, almost everything.

I had a lot to learn, and a lot to see.

In fear of my children’s future, believing that he just did not have the experiences to show him the better way, I prayed.

I often advise, step in your mind into the future, then, look back at the present, what would you choose now.  Step forward and look back.

I wanted him to have a chance to see the consequences to his children, and to him.   Knowing how difficult the teen years are, we as parents need to know we did everything we could for our children.  I wanted to fix things before it would be too late.

I asked God, “Please, for our children, please, show him the ultimate suffering a parent can have for their child.  There is so much happening that he could see.  Just show him.”  I wanted to know I did everything I could for my children, and I wanted him to want the same thing.  But other people have their own agency.

Shortly thereafter, the week I was due, to make a long story short, we got the phone call.

Because of the prayer, and the boldness of the answer, few moments in my life have been more frightening.  Was it God or Satan answering?  Did this mean…

His beautiful, troubled nephew had killed himself horrifically.

As I thought through the event and what it could mean.  I did not want this for our children.  To prevent it, I wanted him to go to his brother.  I wanted him to hear his brothers trembling voice.  I wanted him to see his brothers anguish.  I wanted to hear his brothers soul searching.  I wanted him to see through his brother’s eyes.   Wanted him to step into the future, and look back.

The funeral was scheduled on my due date in another state.  I went to the computer, purchased a flight and told him to go.  Please go and help your brother, I will just cross my legs and be fine.

When he returned a week later, and we had a chance to talk, I asked him.  “What did you get from talking to your brother?  How did it affect you?” 

His answer.  “If I don’t get what I want in life, I will end up like Joey.”

The view I had at that moment, is not the view I have now.