THE REHABILITATION: Week Two: Court Is Still in Session

Movement I: Becoming the Patient

"All rise."

Those words echoed in my spirit before my feet ever touched the floor.

The Court was still in session.

Last week, I stood before God with my grief. I brought the evidence. I testified about Darren. I testified about Jaxon. I testified about the woman I had become after years of caregiving, burying children, surviving what I once believed would surely break me.

When Week One ended, I thought I had survived the hardest part.

I was wrong.

Heaven wasn't finished with me.

Not because I was on trial.

Because I was in rehabilitation.

There is a difference.

A trial asks whether you are guilty.

Rehabilitation assumes you are worth restoring.

I didn't understand that yet.

I thought rehabilitation would feel victorious.

I imagined waking up every morning with fresh strength and renewed purpose. I imagined dramatic breakthroughs and miraculous moments that would make everything make sense.

Instead, rehabilitation introduced me to my own body.

Not the body that had faithfully carried me through years of caregiving.

Not the body that had walked hospital hallways, slept in ICU chairs, learned medical language I never wanted to know, and somehow found enough strength to keep going.

This was a body that had finally reached its limit.

It started with something so ordinary that, under different circumstances, it would have become a family story we laughed about for years.

Nolin and I were dancing.

Michael Jackson was playing, and for a few precious moments, I wasn't thinking about specialists, diagnoses, laboratory values, grief, or everything waiting for me when the music stopped.

I was simply Mommy.

He was simply my little boy.

Then, in the innocence only a two-year-old possesses, his tiny hand caught my eye.

He didn't mean to hurt me.

He was just being two.

I laughed at first.

It didn't seem like anything worth mentioning.

I had survived so much worse.

Or so I thought.

Within days, my face began to swell.

The pain intensified.

What should have been a minor injury became something my body could not contain.

That's the thing about living with autoimmune disease.

Your body doesn't always respond the way other bodies do.

A paper cut isn't always a paper cut.

A cold isn't always a cold.

A small injury can become a crisis because the body fighting for you is also fighting itself.

One emergency room became another.

Urgent care.

Specialists.

Blood work.

Questions.

More questions.

I found myself repeating my medical history so many times that it no longer sounded like my life.

It sounded like a chart.

Autoimmune disease.

Crohn's disease.

Primary sclerosing cholangitis.

Liver disease.

Abnormal labs.

Severe itching.

Bruising.

Swelling.

Every diagnosis carried its own weight.

But together they formed a sentence I had never wanted to hear spoken over my own life.

For years, I knew how to sit beside the hospital bed.

I knew how to ask the hard questions.

I knew how to advocate for my children.

I knew how to challenge physicians respectfully.

I knew how to insist that my sons deserved better.

What I didn't know...

was how to become the patient.

That realization unsettled me more than any diagnosis.

Because being the caregiver had become part of my identity.

Being the one with the answers had become comfortable.

Being the one who needed help...

felt foreign.

One physician looked at me and told me how I felt.

He explained my body as if I weren't living inside it.

He dismissed concerns that every other member of my medical team recognized.

For years, I taught other families to trust what they knew when something didn't feel right.

Now it was my turn to believe my own voice.

So I made a decision that surprised even me.

I fired him.

Not because I was angry.

Because I finally understood that advocacy doesn't end when the patient is you.

It begins there.

Walking out of that office, I didn't feel victorious.

I felt tired.

Bone tired.

The kind of tired that sleep doesn't fix.

The kind of tired that settles into your soul after years of carrying more than one person should ever have to carry.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it, a frightening thought slipped quietly into my heart.

For the first time in my life...

I was afraid for my own life.

Not because I had lost hope.

Because I suddenly realized how deeply I wanted tomorrow.

I have lived through enough loss to know that people make assumptions about grief.

One of the biggest assumptions is that if you've buried enough people you love, eventually you stop caring whether you live or die.

For a long time, I believed that about myself.

After Darren.

After Jaxon.

After years of hospital rooms, machines, medications, emergency calls, surgeries, therapies, and watching my children fight battles they never should have known...

I honestly thought there was a part of me that wouldn't mind if Heaven called my name too.

I never wanted to harm myself.

I wasn't trying to leave this earth.

I was simply exhausted.

There is a difference.

Exhaustion can convince you that surviving and living are the same thing.

They aren't.

This week exposed the lie I had been believing.

One afternoon, Nolin walked over to me.

There wasn't anything extraordinary about the moment.

No audience.

No music.

No dramatic revelation.

Just a little boy who loves his mommy.

He wrapped his tiny arms around me, looked up at me with all the innocence only a child possesses, and said,

"Mommy, I love you."

Something inside me broke.

Not in the way grief usually breaks you.

Something opened.

The tears came before I could stop them.

I held him tighter than I probably ever had before because, for the first time, I wasn't crying over who I had lost.

I was crying over who I still had.

I was crying because I realized I wanted to stay.

I want to watch Nolin grow up.

I want to see the first day of kindergarten become middle school, then high school, then whatever dreams God has written for his life.

I want to hear him tell stories that make no sense.

I want to embarrass him when he's a teenager.

I want to watch him become a husband, maybe a father.

I want to be there.

That little hug confronted a lie that grief had quietly planted in my heart.

I don't want to leave this world.

I want to live.

Not merely exist.

Not simply survive another day.

I want to live.

That realization changed the way I looked at every doctor's appointment after that.

I wasn't fighting because I was afraid of death.

I was fighting because life is still a gift.

Not an easy gift.

Not a painless gift.

But a gift all the same.

As the week continued, my body kept reminding me that something was wrong.

My skin hurt in ways I couldn't explain.

Bruises appeared from the slightest touch.

The itching became relentless, as though I could never fully escape my own skin.

Some days I wanted to crawl out of my body because I didn't know how to be comfortable inside it anymore.

And then another thought found me.

One that only a mother who has buried children could understand.

If I feel like this...

What did Darren feel?

What did Jaxon feel?

Did they know this kind of exhaustion?

Did they know this kind of pain?

Did their little bodies carry burdens they didn't have words to describe?

Questions like that can consume you if you let them.

I felt myself standing at the edge of them.

Then, almost as gently as a father taking his daughter's hand, God redirected my heart.

Those answers don't belong to you.

They belong to Me.

I will probably always wonder.

Because that's what mothers do.

We replay memories.

We question decisions.

We revisit conversations.

We search for things we might have missed.

Love does that.

But as I sat there, I realized something else.

Every decision I made for Darren...

Every decision I made for Jaxon...

I made because I loved them.

Not because I knew everything.

Not because I got everything right.

But because I loved them with everything I had.

Love was never missing.

Love was always present.

And somehow, that truth quieted the accusations that grief so often whispers.

Later that week, I sat across from my therapist, exhausted in every possible way.

Physically.

Mentally.

Emotionally.

Spiritually.

I looked at her and asked the question that had been circling in my mind all week.

"So...what's the plan?"

I had done everything I knew to do.

I had gone to appointments.

I had rested.

I had taken my medications.

I had shown up for therapy.

I had mothered Nolin with the strength I still had.

But I hadn't worked on God Said No.

I hadn't touched Elevation of Care.

I hadn't built my business.

I hadn't been productive.

To someone who has spent a lifetime measuring her value by what she can carry, that felt like failure.

She listened quietly.

Then she said words that stopped me in my tracks.

"Stop being the administrator.

You are the patient."

Silence filled the room.

Because she wasn't just talking about medicine.

She was talking about me.

For more than a decade, I had organized everyone else's care.

I knew how to advocate.

I knew how to coordinate.

I knew how to carry.

But I had never learned how to receive.

Maybe that was the first lesson rehabilitation was trying to teach me.

Healing begins the moment you stop managing everyone else's recovery...

and finally allow yourself to receive your own.

The Mirror

The strange thing about rehabilitation is that it doesn't just expose what hurts.

It exposes what you've been hiding.

I woke up one morning talking to God about my mom.

Or at least I thought I was talking about my mom.

I had already prepared my argument.

She doesn't understand me.

She doesn't understand this kind of grief.

She keeps trying to mother me, and I don't need to be mothered that way right now.

In my mind, my case was solid.

I wasn't trying to dishonor her.

I was trying to explain my hurt.

Then, almost as quickly as the thought entered my mind, I sensed the Lord interrupt me.

"Court is in session."

Immediately, I knew this wasn't going to be a conversation about my mother.

It was going to be a conversation about me.

I stood there in my heart, laying out every piece of evidence I thought supported my position.

Then, little by little, the Holy Spirit began asking questions I didn't want to answer.

"The grace you're asking everyone else to give you...

...have you given that to your mom?"

Silence.

"The patience you're asking your husband to have...

...have you shown that same patience?"

More silence.

"The understanding you're desperate for...

...have you offered understanding to the people carrying you?"

There was no accusation in His voice.

Only love.

The kind of love that tells the truth because it refuses to leave you where you are.

I broke.

Not because I felt condemned.

Because I finally saw myself clearly.

I've been angry.

Not just sad.

Angry.

Angry that Darren is gone.

Angry that Jaxon is gone.

Angry that my body has become another mountain to climb.

Angry that my life looks nothing like I imagined.

The problem wasn't that I felt anger.

The problem was where it had been landing.

The safest people in my life had become the people most likely to absorb it.

Darryl.

My mom.

The people who never walked away.

The people who stayed.

The people who kept loving me when I didn't always know how to receive it.

That realization humbled me.

Because grief had convinced me I was simply protecting myself.

God showed me that sometimes I was protecting myself by pushing away the very people He had sent to help carry me.

Then my thoughts shifted.

Not because I forced them to.

Because gratitude quietly walked into the courtroom.

I thought about my mom, Regina.

I thought about my bonus mom, Bernita.

I thought about Jonathan.

I thought about Larry Joe.

Four parents.

Four different personalities.

Four different ways of loving me.

For years, I had looked at my family through the lens of what they didn't understand.

God invited me to look again through the lens of how faithfully they had shown up.

Jonathan had been steady.

The kind of steady that doesn't need attention.

Just presence.

My bonus mom, Bernita, had loved me without trying to replace anyone.

She simply made room for me.

My mom had continued reaching for me, even when grief made me difficult to reach.

And Larry Joe...

This season gave us something we had never fully shared before.

For most of my life, I was independent.

I learned to carry my own weight.

Maybe he thought I didn't need him.

Maybe I thought I didn't either.

We were both wrong.

No matter how old a daughter becomes...

there is still something sacred about knowing her dad is standing nearby.

God wasn't showing me a perfect family.

He was showing me a present one.

And there is a difference.

Perfection has never been the requirement.

Presence has.

I sat there thinking about how many people pray for one safe parent.

One.

And here I was, surrounded by four people who loved me in different ways.

How could I call myself abandoned?

How could I overlook such extravagant grace because grief had narrowed my vision?

That morning, I realized something else.

Feeling alone...

is not the same as being alone.

Grief is loud.

Pain is loud.

Illness is loud.

They can become so loud that they drown out the quiet voices of the people who have been faithfully saying,

"I'm still here."

Rehabilitation wasn't just teaching me how to receive medical care.

It was teaching me how to receive love again.

Maybe that's even harder.

Because receiving love requires admitting you need it.

And maybe...

just maybe...

that's exactly what God had been trying to teach me all along.

P.S. to Shantrael...

You don't have to earn your healing.

Read that again.

You don't have to earn your healing.

You earned degrees.

You earned promotions.

You earned respect.

You earned the reputation of being the one who always shows up.

But healing?

Healing is received.

Not earned.

Your body isn't failing because you're weak.

Your body is asking for the same compassion you've spent your entire life giving away.

Listen to her.

She's carried you through pregnancies, caregiving, hospital hallways, sleepless nights, grief, funerals, laughter, road trips, prayers, and purpose.

She isn't your enemy.

She's exhausted.

Stop apologizing for resting.

Stop measuring your worth by your productivity.

Stop believing that because you sat down, you've somehow let people down.

The people who truly love you aren't keeping score.

Neither is God.

Your assignment isn't to save the world this week.

Your assignment is to let God save you.

And one more thing...

The little girl inside you who learned to survive everything?

Tell her she can finally unclench.

She doesn't have to hold this family together by herself anymore.

There are four parents standing beside you.

A husband who refuses to leave.

A son who still needs his mommy.

A village that keeps showing up.

And a Father who has never, not for one second, walked out of the courtroom.

So, daughter...

Go to your appointments.

Take your medicine.

Cry when you need to.

Laugh when you can.

Rest without guilt.

Receive love without suspicion.

And keep showing up for your rehabilitation one day at a time.

Because the verdict was never death.

The verdict has always been life.

Love,

The woman you're becoming.

P.S.S. to July...

We've been here before.

Every year you've arrived with balloons, birthday plans, anticipation, and joy.

Then you became the month that introduced me to one of the greatest loves of my life.

You made me Jaxon's mommy.

You also became the doorway to everything that would change me forever.

So forgive me if I flinch when I see you coming.

I'm not afraid of a month.

I'm afraid of the memories it carries.

July...

I may never stop approaching you with trembling hands.

But this year, I won't face you alone.

Abba is here.

Darryl is here.

Nolin is here.

My family is here.

My village is here.

And for the first time...

I am here too.

Not because I have conquered grief.

But because grief no longer gets to convince me that I have to walk through you by myself.

So...do what you came to do.

I'll do the same.

~ST