2021 Stretched Me Beyond the Vision BOARD: (2 of 4)
My one-year-old daughter quickly brought my dramatic display of despair to an end. I needed to get up and keep going. I’d have a moment to cry when my kids went to sleep.
**If you missed “Part 1” of me retelling some moments that occurred during the last six months of 2021, click here. This post is a continuation of such.
It was over. I propped up my slightly swollen feet and breathed a nervous breath.
“It” was over.
What was the “it”?
The influx of physical ailments witnessed on my immediate family? Perhaps.
My husband sat on the couch, still weak…not really watching my recommended musical but happy to see me smile.
Something felt all too spiritual about the days. The timing of sickness right after my husband’s fast. The random texts received from those who knew nothing of our situation-commenting “thinking of you” “just calling” “on my mind.”
I thought “it” was over. But things were only beginning. I felt warm air. Not exactly warmth as in the sweet presence of the Holy Spirit－although He was definitely there.
24 hours later, upon one of the hottest weeks in Memphis, TN, our AC went out.
“Ev, our AC is completely out,” I yelled back, after walking in the door. Evan approached our door from the garage and let down our daughter from his arms to get a better listen to what I said.
“Aw dang, you’re right. Okay,” he responded.
A few hours passed.
“We’re not staying here tonight. You can get ready to go. I’ll call my mom so we can stay with my folks,” my husband spoke with a sense of finality.
Didn’t I tell you that my husband doesn’t like to be hot…or hungry?
One day of being away from our home quickly turned into ten days. COVID delays had the part for our AC unit on back order. Praise God that we had a place to stay. Not just a place, but my in-laws were and are always perfect hosts－ensuring that our every want and need are always met. Despite such accommodations gifted to us, I began growing anxious with each passing day that we were away from our home.
By the ninth night, I couldn’t sleep. I needed to get back into our home quickly. I didn’t quite know why, but I could tell that my growing anxiety had the potential of impacting our precious child growing in my womb.
“Love, we need to purchase an AC window unit until our AC is officially fixed. I can’t spend another night away from home,” I nagged my husband…more than once.
Tired of hearing my incessant request, my husband compromised by offering for us to stay with my parents, who lived only a few minutes from my in-laws. He thought I’d feel more comfortable if we stayed there since…well, I grew up there. He didn’t see the need to doll out more money when our home warranty was in the process of fixing our AC unit any day.
“Our home warranty keeps delaying and I really need to be back in our own space,” I tried convincing once again.
He listened and insisted that staying with my parents might quell my anxious thoughts. We packed up our kiddos and went to stay with my folks. But within two hours of arriving at my parents, I knew that I’d probably have another night of not sleeping－not due to a lack of luxurious accommodations provided by my parents but due to the fact that, for whatever reason, I really needed to get back to my own home. I grew tired of explaining to my husband as to why. I just knew that I needed to be home and couldn’t sleep restfully until I was.
Without feeling the need to explain further, I packed up my personal bag and let my husband know that I was leaving my parent’s home…that same night.
“Where are you going?” my husband asked when seeing my back packed and sitting at my parent’s door. We had just gotten the kids ready for bed and settled for the night.
“I’m going home. The low for tonight is in the 60s. I’ll take Ada with me and put her to sleep (I still nursed her at night). But I’m going home. I can’t sleep here and I can't be in someone else's home for the unforeseeable future. It’s stressing me out.”
Something was off and I couldn’t place my finger on it. All I knew was that I needed to get back to our home. Did I say that already?
My husband looked at me and didn’t say anything.
“Um…okay,” he cautiously retorted. He gave me the sort of look he’d perfected when he was utterly confused and could only explain away my actions by pinning them to…hormones.
My parents were even more bewildered than he. I just told them, without explanation, that my husband and our son would be staying with them while I went back home.
My amazing parents on the night of my college graduation. Posting this dated picture because I knew my Mama would approve of this one lol. Her beauty is flawless!
That night, in the comforts of my home, with all fans on and windows opened, I slept fitfully like a newborn babe.
The next morning, I woke up in peace and then did something I’d never done in our marriage.
I purchased a large window unit－a hefty cost－while knowing that my husband did not stand in agreement.
“You have every right to be upset,” I texted my husband, before sharing what I’d done. Due to our shared accounts, I knew my husband had already received the notification for the purchase without me needing to share.
“Lol…I’m just happy you are okay,” he gracefully replied.
I could see his concerned look for my emotional well-being from afar.
My actions did not appear stable to the naked eye.
I didn’t understand my actions myself.
My one-year-old daughter and I went to Costco during the senior hour and purchased a very large AC unit. I went home, dragged it out of the car, somehow, and installed it myself without blinking an eye. I would not be spending the night in anyone’s home.
I could finally breathe.
High off of being in the comforts of my own home again, I began cleaning our kitchen with a new melody in my heart. I felt so elated to be home, to have everything I needed at my fingertips, and to begin cooking as much delectable food as I’d like.
Within a few hours, I heard a strange sound in the kitchen. After briefly looking for the source of the sound, I figured it was the refrigerator making ice and went on with my morning chores.
I fell into my usual dance of wiping down counters, scrubbing dishes, sweeping, mopping, and adding essential oils to my diffuser. What I once thought were mundane chores suddenly felt therapeutic. I was grateful to be back in my regimen-a regimen that I didn’t know that I’d miss. Towards the end of my missed routine, I looked down.
And that is when I saw it. Water coming up from underneath our kitchen floorboards.
It began from the laundry room and spanned the width of our entire kitchen. I soon realized that we had a leak coming from the dishwasher. I waddled to our kitchen sink and shut off the water valve connecting to the dishwasher. The strange sound instantly ceased. But the water continued to seep its way through our luxury vinyl tiles.
I looked around me and fell to my knees. We had a water leak.
“Lord, please. Please, not this. Lord, I need….I need…. a break. Just a moment. This is too much.”
We had just replaced our entire downstairs with brand new flooring less than one year prior…and here I was standing in the midst of a water leak. I knew we didn’t have the funds to do a quick repair. And the potential for mold loomed over my head. I was in my third trimester, planning for a home birth in a few weeks. And here we were, dealing with a water leak. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.
My one year-old daughter quickly brought my dramatic display of despair to an end. I needed to get up and keep going. I’d have a moment to cry when my kids went to sleep.
Our precious daughter.
That night, I went to my closet and pulled out my journal.
“Lord, thank You for our health.
Thank You for our home.
Thank You for my marriage.
Thank You for these children.
Thank you for the AC unit that is allowing us to stay in our home until our AC is fixed.
Thank you for allowing me to be home to quickly catch this leak
And can you give us $12,000 in the next few days?
I know You can do it.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”
What the Lord did next…blew me away.
Click Here to Read —>Part 3
Also, check out my latest book, “God, Princeton, & My Pondered Thoughts: A Memoir of My Encounter with God at an Ivy,” on Amazon.
2021 Stretched Me Beyond the Vision BOARD: Here's HOW Part 1
If you’re curious to know how the last six months of my life have fared, join the adventurous journey by reading along. It’s been…. ”interesting” to say the least.
In late December of 2020, my husband and I wrote out our visions, placed them on four large whiteboards, and hung them up in our office. I took the extra step of typing them, printing them, and laminating them to be fully displayed in our kitchen for a constant reminder.
I wonder if I can write a blog post within 30 minutes.
I’ve never done so in the past.
But this is also my first time writing a blog post while having three children aged three and under.
This is new. So, here we are.
If you’re curious to know how the last six months of my life have fared, join the adventurous journey by reading along. It’s been…. “interesting” to say the least.
In late December of 2020, my husband and I wrote out our visions, placed them on four large whiteboards, and hung them up in our office. I took the extra step of typing them, printing them, and laminating them to be fully displayed in our kitchen for a constant reminder.
We had plans. Rather we had a vision.
Therefore, by the end of May 2021, still high on what 2021 could bring, my husband shared with me that he would be embarking on a 3-day water fast with a group of spiritual brothers to pray for the remainder of the year. More specifically, my husband determined himself to pray for our family’s spiritual growth and for wisdom regarding preparation for what was to come.
“Pray for me love, seriously, while I fast,” my husband said in passing while pouring a blueberry smoothie into a sippy cup while not stepping over our recently turned one-year-old daughter who still loved to crawl. Completing the latest feat, my husband straightened out his navy blue suit pants and gathered a list of items to rush out the door for the morning.
“I got you, bae,” I said after receiving his distinctive goodbye kiss.
At the time, I was in my third trimester, very much pregnant, and tested daily with a 3-year-old and one-year-old at home.
“I should be the one asking for prayer,” I thought, while staring at our beautiful children and wondering what the coming day would hold.
My husband’s water fast began.
And so did our year…it seemed.
Let me give a disclaimer. The second half of 2021 proved trying, but it wasn’t bad. I prefer the words “adventurous” and “glorious.” So if my tonality conveys anything less than…consider that I’m typing feverishly while it’s “nap time” for the kiddos.
It started with a small cold caught by our one year-old daughter, Ada. That cold soon spread to her older brother. No, I wasn’t panicking at this point, nor tired after nursing them to health for a week. It was at the “one week and one day” mark that tested my limits.
On day 8 of being sick, my son gripped his ear and began tugging it in clear discomfort while my husband and I took a casual Sunday drive to grab food. One look at our son and I knew this was serious.
“Bae, he’s in a lot of pain. Go to Whole Foods. We need to get some raw garlic and one raw onion ASAP,” I griped. All plans for a quiet Sunday evening were put on pause.
It didn’t matter. It never does.
My husband, at this point in our marriage, rarely looked at me crazy upon hearing my strange medicinal requests. Instead, he kindly did what was instructed when it came to me nursing our kiddos to health ( as long as my husband had a full stomach..please don’t catch him hot or hungry).
We made it home and I immediately began making garlic and onion poultices to be placed on my son’s ear. I think this is the point in which I began showcasing my third-trimester waddle in full force. My husband placed a movie on for our son to watch while I carefully placed the poultice on my son’s ear.
Instant relief. (Weeks later my son would pull at his ear in hopes that I’d put a movie on for him to watch.)
I could breathe. No mom cares to see any of her children in pain. I waddled upstairs with our daughter to change her diaper. By the time she and I made it to the top of the stairs, my daughter began projectile vomiting.
“What in the….” I stared in disbelief, as her vomit settled more firmly into our carpet.
“EVANN!!!!” I yelled.
Her temperature then spiked. For the next 4-5 hours, our daughter would nurse (yes I was breastfeeding and very pregnant) and would then throw up an hour later. We called our pediatrician.
“Has she stopped vomiting? Okay, good. Give it another 48 hours. As long as she can keep a good amount of liquids down…” our pediatrician graciously instructed.
And thankfully, our daughter did just that.
Except her temperature remained the same for the next two days.
I made a same-day appointment.
Her diagnosis? A double ear infection.
I broke down in the parking lot of our pediatrician’s office in tears. Later we discovered that Ada had a severe food allergy to peas. She’d been drinking pea protein milk for weeks. I thought I’d done well in finding her a drink she liked. I didn’t know.
I grabbed my daughter’s prescribed antibiotics from Walgreens and drove home, following the smell of normalcy coming within a few days.
I closed our garage door and grabbed our two kiddos out of the car and walked into our home, only to see my husband sprawled out on the couch in the early afternoon on a weekday.
He had a 102 °F fever.
I became the nurse in the house. Going upstairs, downstairs. Touching foreheads. Giving out water. Studying all behavior like a scientist in a laboratory.
My husband's fever continued to spike, at one point in the night, going up to 104°F. We couldn’t go to an urgent care clinic, at the time, lest we had a negative COVID test. I called my mother-in-love for help. She brought over the entire Walgreens cold and flu section late that night. The very next morning, I drove my husband to get a COVID test. We waited a few hours and found out it was negative. I scheduled an appointment for him to see our primary care doctor the very next day. All the while, his fever continued to spike the moment any meds wore off.
My sister rushed over the next morning to watch our kids while I took my husband to the doctor. I drove while saying prayers over my husband, who was ready to take whatever pill to make his sickness go away. At this point, my concoctions of cayenne pepper, apple cider vinegar, raw garlic, and ginger made him look at me with the utmost distrust.
I knew he was really sick, considering he obliged to sit in the passenger seat while I drove him to the doctor.
It took only one look from my husband’s primary care doctor for her to know that my husband was seriously sick. She hooked him up to an IV to receive fluids, fever reducers, and antibiotics. A few hours later, we picked up my husband’s Z-pack and went home. I walked in the house. Empty cups of cranberry juice and crackers sat on the counter, reminders of how many times we did communion and said prayers over the course of a few days.
I could sit and rest.
Okay, Lord. You are so good. We passed these tests. My husband was not yet 100%. My daughter's ear infections weren’t all the way healed. And my son still had a cough… but God was good.
The year could now begin.
The blessings could be poured down.
We made it. And I could sit down and stop showcasing my perfected waddle.
I watched the premiere of Washington Heights and smiled.
I didn’t care if the house was in complete disarray, or that the kids hadn’t bathed, or that I could barely walk across our living room floor due to miscellaneous items encroaching my every step.
I could sit and laugh with my husband, while we stared at the music scenes beautifully displayed across our screen.
It was over. I propped up my slightly swollen feet and breathed a nervous breath. “It” was over.
What was the “it?”
The influx of physical ailments assailed on my immediate family? Perhaps.
My husband sat on the couch, still weak…not really watching my recommended musical but happy to see me smile.
Something felt all too spiritual about the days: the timing of sickness right after my husband’s fast, the random texts received from those who knew nothing of our situation—commenting “thinking of you”, “just calling”, “on my mind”—and the severity of my husband’s sickness (one in which had never occurred in my thirteen years of knowing him).
I thought “it” was over. But things were only beginning. I felt warm air. Not exactly warmth as in the sweet presence of the Holy Spirit—although He was definitely there.