Chapter 2

I’d like to rewind just a bit, because I feel I glossed over some areas that deserve a little more attention if I’m going to tell this story in a way that might help others. As Rick Warren says in his best-selling book, The Purpose Driven Life, "God never wastes a hurt. Your greatest ministry will most likely come out of your greatest hurt". So as this story might well be my greatest ministry, I don’t want leave anything important out.

As I relayed in chapter 1, a year after Shawna’s hemispherectomy, Keith and I were getting a divorce, and five years later I agreed to let Shawna go live with her father and stepmother. It’s not hard to figure out how the challenges of having a seriously ill child can strike a fatal blow to an already struggling marriage, but one may wonder how a mother who fought as hard as I did to save her child’s life could willingly give up physical custody five years later.

At the time, I really believed the reason I was letting Shawna go was because I was a working single mother with a younger child with special needs of his own, and Keith’s new wife Kay, was a stay-at-home mom. That was the neat and tidy reason. But we all know plenty of working single parents - some with special needs children - who would never willingly give up their child, no matter what the circumstances.

I did not realize it then, but the real reason I was willing to let Shawna go was because I was deeply angry - not at Shawna - but at what had happened to her. I was consumed with unresolved grief over the normal little girl I had lost. Maybe if I didn’t have to take care of her every day, the hurt would ease.

Thankfully, the move turned out to be a good thing for Shawna, not only because Keith was always a devoted father, but because Kay had more objectivity than I did. Shawna learned many new skills and really blossomed into a capable young lady while living with Keith and Kay.

About a year later I met and fell in love with the man who would later become my husband, Bob Edwards. My son Gary, meanwhile, was having a tough time in kindergarten due to his attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD). He had begun some very destructive behaviors, including stealing and lying. And he hated Bob. So when it was time for Gary to start first grade, I again took Keith up on his offer to take him to start first grade with them. It wasn’t for the same reasons as Shawna, but I felt at the time I was doing the best thing for Gary.

Soon after, Bob’s career took him to San Diego, a horrifying three hour’s drive from where my kids lived with Keith and Kay in Lancaster. "How can this work?" I thought to myself. I love this man, but I cannot be three hours away from my kids, no way! Then I found a way. . . I learned to fly a single engine airplane and I got my private pilot’s license, so I could get to the kids often and quickly.

Learning to fly was not something I had ever aspired to, but there was just no other way to get from San Diego to Lancaster and back in one weekend. Bob got his pilot’s license too, and we regularly flew up to get my kids and bring them back to San Diego for the weekend. I thought my children would be impressed with their "pilot mom", but their basic reaction was, "Doesn’t everybody’s mom fly an airplane?" No big deal.

Gary gave his father and stepmom a real run for their money, and combined with Shawna’s special needs, it became too much for Keith and Kay. So by the time Gary was ready to start middle school, the tables were turned and Keith took me up on my offer to take Gary back. Bob and I were married by then and we were certain that together we could give Gary the love and discipline he needed to get back on track, before the critical teen years.

Gary’s adolescence turned out to be the second most painful experience of my life. Gary still resented Bob, and seemed determined to oppose and defy us every step of the way. So it was no surprise to anyone when he ended up in Juvenile Hall at age 16.

Meanwhile, Shawna turned 22, and she announced to all of us that she wanted to move out of Keith and Kay’s and live in a "group home", like many of her friends in Special Olympics did. She had been telling us this since she was barely 18, but we didn’t know much about group homes, and just couldn’t imagine that this would be a good thing. There certainly wasn’t any group homes in the remote desert town where Keith and Kay lived, so Keith asked me to look around in San Diego.

After extensive research, we found Mountain Shadows Community Homes in Escondido, California, which just happened to be only 20 minutes from where Bob and lived. Mountain Shadows (http://www.mtnshadows.org/) is a very unique non-profit organization consisting of a specially designed community of 18 houses where adults with developmental disabilities can live as independently as possible while still having all of their special needs met by trained staff. Each house is named for a tree, and Shawna moved into Orange House with five other girls, and loved it from day one. Finally, I had both my kids near me again.

But Gary was breaking my heart. I spent a lot of time crying, frustrated about what to do. On one particularly lonely night of crying, I told God that I was angry that he let this happen to Gary - after all I had been through with Shawna. Gary was supposed to be my "normal" child I cried to God.

Meanwhile, even though Shawna was happy and doing well at Mountain Shadows, I still had not dealt with my feelings of grief and loss over her illness. I never thought about it consciously, but deep inside I was still grieving the loss of the normal little girl with the blonde pigtails. Every time one of my friends talked about their daughter starting to date, going to college, getting married or whatever, there was a stab in my heart that I would never have those experiences. I had basically been angry for twenty years, without even realizing it.

Here’s where the most phenomenal thing happened to me personally. My anguish over Gary’s problems consumed nearly every waking thought. But suddenly one day, while I was alone and crying about Gary, all of the pain and loss I had kept buried inside for Shawna just evaporated. It was like a ten ton weight had been lifted off of me. . .as if my heart was saying it could no longer grieve for two children at the same time, so it had to let go of one.

Suddenly, I was free from the years of suppressed anger about "what happened" to Shawna, and I suddenly realized that she was the light of my life just the way she was now. It didn’t matter anymore that I would never be the mother of the bride or see her have children of her own. I could finally accept Shawna for who she was and stop mourning the loss of who she would have been had she not gotten sick. From that moment on, I began reveling in the blessing of Shawna, the beautiful daughter who was an extraordinary gift to my life. No more pain, no more anger, just love, appreciation and joy. Ironically, I have my son to thank for that.

I still cried over Gary, but that was balanced by the joy I got every time Shawna and I were together. At Mountain Shadows she had a boyfriend (several of them, actually) and went on dates, she got a job, and had a best friend. It was so gratifying to watch her grow into a bright, articulate and happy young woman. I wasn’t missing out on anything, I realized.