June 28, 2020

“Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:2-3

Sophia’s Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy were going great at this point. Everyone there became like her second family. We had to increase her sessions so we now had a total of 3 sessions every week. When she went there, she had so much fun and she made a lot of friends. She was always excited to go. They were great with her and they made the therapy fun every time. I was so happy to see her happy but honestly, I was super exhausted from life itself. John always offered to take over for a day so I can get a break and I always refused, maybe because I didn’t want the guilt to haunt me later. We received the result of her sleeping test and everything came back normal.

On March 13, 2018, I gave Sophia a shower and was going down the stairs and I slipped down the stairs. While I was going down I made sure to hold Sophia tight and take the hit on my back so she doesn’t get hurt. I screamed because of the pain and Sophia was screaming because she was scared. When I reached the last stair, I looked at her and I said, “are you ok?” She said “yes mom.” John came running and I told him to take Sophia while I tried to get up. He did and checked her and she appeared to be fine. I didn’t care how I felt I cared more about her. I was ok, a little sore, but I was ok. She was ok too until a few hours later when she was trying to stand on the couch and couldn’t stand because of pain in her foot. We checked her foot and it was not swollen and looked normal. We went to sleep and woke up the next morning and she still couldn’t stand on her feet. So, I called the doctor and she said bring her in. I took her in and explained everything that happened the night before. Even the doctor didn’t think it was broken, but she decided to do an x-ray to make sure. When the results of the x-ray came back, everyone was shocked. Her ankle was broken from both sides. I couldn’t stop crying because all that came to my mind is that I caused this to happen. It’s because of me Sophia’s ankle was broken. It’s because of me that she will have to be in a cast. The guilt I had to carry was so heavy. I couldn’t stop blaming myself. 

The doctor said she was hoping that she will be in the cast for 2 weeks but maximum 4 weeks. After a whole month in the cast, we went to the doctor and we took the cast off and did another x-ray. Unfortunately, Sophia’s fractured ankle is not healing as fast as it should because of her muscular dystrophy. So, we have to cast it again for another month. Sophia was a warrior throughout all of this. She never complained about being in a cast or not being able to take a normal bath because of the cast. She would, however, occasionally make us go to Starbucks to get the “stoppers” so that we could use them to slide inside her cast & relieve the itching. 

Now, let’s go back to a few years before I got married. When I first moved to California from New York, my brother introduced me to a lovely girl named Silvia. Silvia became more than a sister to me and I met John through her, they were friends and neighbors for so many years. She got married a year before me and we used to live close to each other. Her husband, Edmond, became one of John’s best friends and she became a sister to me. She had two girls and I had two girls. Silvia was my age and Edmond was John’s age (they were born just a few weeks apart). 

On March 19, 2018, I was talking on the phone to a friend and my dad walked in crying and at first, I couldn’t understand anything he was saying. I hung up and said what is going on, he said “Edmond passed away.” I was shocked and I asked, “Edmond who?” He didn’t answer me because we only knew one Edmond, Silvia’s husband. It was a car accident. Believe it or not it’s been over 2 years and I still sometimes can’t believe that he is gone. I called John, who was driving to Bakersfield, and told him the news. I called Silvia and asked her to pack everything and bring the girls and come over, because she lived 3 and a half hours away from me and everything will be done in California. This whole situation shook every one of us because it proved to us we never know our time. I looked at it as “anyone of us can go any minute, but the question is are we ready?” Once we are gone we can’t undo anything that we messed up before. Once we are gone can we can’t fix our mistakes. We don’t know when we will leave earth, only God knows. As much as we were hurt by Edmond’s passing, it served as a serious wake up call for a lot of people. 

During the first week after Edmond’s passing, it appeared that it didn’t hit Silvia yet that her husband had passed away. Everyone was busy with the arrangements for the funeral and getting the body released for the funeral. Sophia knew Edmond very well and she understood that he went to heaven. Funeral Day came and all of us broke down very bad but Silvia was the worst. I guess it just hit her that day that he was gone. After church, John took me, Silvia, Sophia, and one of Edmond’s relatives in the car so we can go to the cemetery for the burial. Silvia was crying hysterically and I was really worried that Sophia would freak out, so I was trying to calm her down but she was not hearing a single word I was saying. All of a sudden, Sophia put her tiny hand on Silvia’s shoulder and Silvia immediately stopped crying and looked at Sophia. Then Sophia said in a very calm voice, “Silvia don’t cry, Adra (Virgin Mary) said everything will be ok.” Everyone was silent and shocked.  Edmond’s relative asked Sophia what else did Adra (Virgin Mary) say. Sophia changed the subject and she started to be her goofy self again (she would do this very often when she didn’t want to talk about what she had seen or heard). Silvia didn’t cry for the whole ride to the cemetery.

Lessons Learned:

• If we view life through the lens of a child, you will see God’s Hand in everything you face in life.
• The Lord works in mysterious ways and will never do anything to harm us.

PLEASE NOTE – for all of the “lessons learned”, we did not always see it that way during the events that were occurring which are mentioned in the posts. Many of these lessons were learned weeks, months, or even years later when we looked back and reflected on the circumstances.