Thursday, October 19

It’s raining.

Well, it’s precipitating.

It’s that indecisive kind of wetness that’s too fine to aggregate into a raindrop. It hangs in the air thickly, loitering until one rogue cloud lets loose a deluge of seed drops that gather the wetness into falling rain. The kind of wetness that seeps in sideways, penetrating joint and marrow with a damp chill. The kind of wetness that makes time stop, halting progress and suspending time in a tangible mist.

If it were midwinter, this wetness would be transformed into the magical swirling flurries that Hollywood tries to capture. But it’s mid-autumn, October 19; the shoulder season, the time “in-between”; a time of transition, of limbo. So everything is just unwelcomely wet.

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This week has been a series of oopsies. Machinery that won’t start, mowers that won’t stop; vehicles that won’t climb ramps, tractors that won’t come off trailers. Stains that won’t come out, dyes that won’t stay in. With each mishap, I tried to paint a silver lining: “If that’s the worst thing that happens this week, it will be fine.”

None of those was the worst thing that happened this week.

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I looked at my reflection, smoothing my hair in vain as I knew each strand would make its own path as soon as I stepped outside into the morning wetness. I had 27 minutes until my telephone interview, and wasn’t sure if they would require a video call. Finishing primping, I closed the door to my bedroom to make the call, overhearing my sister on the phone with Mom. I made a mental note to inquire about her news after my interview.

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Our family has been abustle for months, readying ourselves for the big day: October 24. Conference calls and emails discussing housing arrangements, meal planning, transportation scheduling, and more. Excitement and anxious eagerness burgeoned to bursting as the day grew nearer and nearer. Last weekend, we gathered as a whole – parents and all five daughters, three grandchildren – celebrating an anticipated life-changing event coming up in just 10 days.

Six months ago, the matchmaker had worked her magic. …or perhaps she had done so six years earlier.

At any rate, my brother-in-law of seven years was matched with my mother six months ago, and we all – my sister included – were elated.

For three-and-a-half years, Mom has dutifully followed a bedtime regimen of attaching a length of tubing from her abdomen to a suitcase-sized machine that looks fresh from the set of an Apollo mission. Dad carries nearly 3 gallons of fluid in for Mom to load on top of the cycler, starting the now familiar hum-and-click nighttime serenade, always hoping that the harsh beep of an error message won’t act as a midnight alarm clock this time.

This nightly routine flushes out toxins accumulated through the human body’s daily tasks; toxins that you, too, would accumulate if your built-in blood filters weren’t functioning. Those two little bean-shaped organs nestled neatly at the back of your rib cage receive and process 200 liters of blood each day (you only have about 5 liters in your body), removing 2 liters of toxins and fluid in the process. So next time you tinkle, let your smile crinkle! – because a functioning kidney is a gift.

And so when my brother-in-law matched with Mom as a living kidney donor, our hearts soared as tears welled. We searched in vain for words that could express our gratitude for the gift of life, a gift that required “laying down his life for his friends“.

Six months of clinic visits, tests, and planning later, we were finally in the home stretch. I was hopeful for my interview, as the job was located just an hour from the home we rented near the hospital for two months post-transplant. After the hour-long phone call, I stepped out of my room to ask Julie about Mom’s news. She looked at me and shook her head.

“More results came back from pre-op testing. They’re no longer compatible. Surgery is cancelled.”

My mind raced. After testing two days earlier, we’d been praying for improvement in Mom’s bloodwork to ensure a safe recovery from surgery, thinking that the worst that could happen was a delay in surgery. But now….

October 24 wasn’t the “big day” anymore. Our whole lives had turned and pivoted around that date, but now the pin was pulled; we were unhinged. Multiple plans built around, “After surgery…” were suddenly defunct. A marathon nearly complete, with a hand-scrawled detour sign blocking the finish line.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick; there are a lot of sick hearts on this wet Thursday morning.
It feels like a wedding was called off. Hopes and dreams and pretty pink bows built around a date on the calendar, falling flat. Should we return the tux, the dress? Will we get our venue deposit back? (Nope)

I wander the house aimlessly, vacantly staring at packages half-packed, clothes partially laundered, dishes yet to be done. With all of our purposes aimed toward Transplant Day, it’s hard to know what to do now that the target has disappeared. I step outside into the wetness and oppressive stillness, not noticing my hair rising, but demanding the precipitation to make up its mind and just get the rain over with. My spirit matches the thick mist, suspended in limbo between cloud nine and rock bottom, aimlessly floating with a sudden loss of direction.

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We know that God has had His hand in this process from the start. We thought we had anticipated the finish, but still we trust that His timing is best timing. And we know that the sun will rise again tomorrow – perhaps piercing through this nebulous mist to be split and transformed into a dancing, iridescent promise of no more floods, no more deluges, and even no more tears.