Sweet Baby Harrison Hudson

I am sitting here with a cup of decaf, an empty plate that once held the last slice of chocolate cake from Scooter's party yesterday, a house that is strewn with toys and puzzles, two sleeping children, and a heart that is heavy with  the burdens of others and prayer.  There are so many families that suffer loss, struggle with sick children, beg God for a miracle.  I am not sure if I am just ultra sensitive to these families now or if God places them in my life because my heart is so open for them after our losses.  Actually, I am positive it is the latter.    

I have a friend that is pregnant.  She lost her last baby a few years ago and never imagined she would be here again.  A miracle.  She has not had an event free pregnancy so far, but she is hanging in there.  I pray for her constantly, asking God to give her any miracle that was to be mine today.  Does that sound crazy to you?  I don't know maybe it is crazy.  Maybe I should be saving mine up just in case I need them one day soon.  But you see this is what I know, I know that if I needed a miracle, this same friend would give me hers without a thought. 

There is another family that I have asked God to give my miracles too over the last few months and that is the Hudson family.  You guys have read about sweet Harrison in my earlier blogs.  I am so touched by this family and this little boy, partly because his father was a good friend of mine what seems like a lifetime ago.  But mostly I think because I know that if our boy had a lived a few more weeks, we may be in the same boat they are in. 

I think about them a lot.  I struggle between relief and jealously to tell you the truth.  If Bennett had lived and not been "normal" by today's definition would we have made it?  If he had been a special needs kid, it would have rocked our world and the world of our girls.  It would have changed our lives entirely just as Harrison has changed the lives of his family.  I imagine the struggles financially, emotionally, and a thousand other ways.  I do at time breathe a sigh of relief that my girls are not going through that and my husband does not have that pressure.  However, then I remember Bennett.  Sweet, perfect, little Bennett laying there in that little box and I think, I would trade with them in a heartbeat.  Bring on the sleepless nights, the financial hardship, the medical train wreck, bring it all.  It makes me smile to know that this family, the Hudsons, that is exactly their attitude.  They will take it all and move forward and pray for a miracle everyday and they do just that.  That my friends is why it is so easy for me to ask Him to send my miracles to Harrison today and tomorrow and next week.

Below is a website for this sweet little guy.  It tells his story and it will guide you to his facebook page and his caringbridge site.  I encourage you to read it for a multitude of reasons.  One, it is reminder of how precious life is and how healthy kids are a true miracle.  Two, it will give you something to really pray for and to watch as God answers those prayers as I know He will.  Finally, it will give you an opportunity to give to a family and see how your gift affects their lives.  How often we give openly, but never really see the affect we have had on others.  This is an opportunity to give and watch first hand as we strengthen a little boy's life and affect a family's future. 

hopeforharrison.org


I think about miracles and how many I have been blessed to see and be a part of.  I remember my sweet boy and then I look at my niece Savannah who was never expected and a miracle to our family and I smile at the thought of my sister.  I smile because I know it tickles her heart with every breath Savannah takes.  Today I am sharing my miracles with a few people that have touched my life and if you are in need of one, you are welcome to one of mine sweet friend, just let me know.  ;)

Pray for sweet Harrison and if it is on your heart to give, I hope that you will.

Love and Blessings!

Melanie

Mike aka Bud.

Recently a friend of mine, a new friend of mine, lost her brother.  He was in his forties and he died of cancer.  Unfortunately, she was here and he was on the other side of the country and he died before she could get there to say goodbye.  It got me thinking about my brother.  I am the middle child of three and I have a little brother.  His birth name is Michael Bennett Slocum Jr. but he goes by about a thousand nicknames including but not limited too Bud, Junior, Little Mike, Little Daddy, Frog, Minnesota and Mike.

On a typical day I refer to my brother as Mike or Bud.  So for this blog we will call him Mike.  Mike is 33 years old, he lives with my mom and dad, he works for Delta Meter which is a family owned business, he loves to drink, smoke, gamble, play cards and watch football.  So as you can see we have very little in common at this point in our lives. From that I imagine you would gather that we talk every now and then and that we are not very close.  You are wrong. 

When I in college I went home to visit.  To give you a little bit of background about me, I don't have a very good memory.  I don't remember much about being a kid or even a teenager.  I remember traumatic events such as my heel cord extension when I was 18 months.  I remember births and deaths and I remember trips or vacations.  Other than that it is like everything before Doc is a blur.  So for me to remember this night would make it either really exciting or really traumatic. 

So anyway, I went home to visit and my brother was out that night. This was during the time of pagers.  Yes, I know, I am dating myself.  Look folks, I will be 36 next month and I cannot do a thing about it so what the heck right?!  I digress, Mike had a pager but he was AWFUL about returning calls.  Unless, and this is a big unless, unless I paged him.  You see at this point in our lives we had a lot in common.  We were both in school, we loved football, beer and bars and spent a lot of time together watching football, drinking beer and going to bars.  I would venture to say he was my very best friend at the time and I was his which explains the "unless".  So Mike was out and I paged him to see when he was coming home but he did not call me back.  So, I paged him again, and again, and again.  Now if he usually ignored me I would have thought nothing of it and left it at one, maybe two pages.  But since his track record was so good I went straight into panic mode.  I remember it like it was last night!  I just knew that something horrible had happened to my brother and for about an hour and a half, until his sorry butt got home, I laid up in that bedroom and cried wondering what I would do without him.  When he finally got home I squeezed him and told him how happy I was to see him! NOT! I cussed his butt out and told him if he ever scared me like that again I would kill him myself! ;) 

"The moral of my story? you ask.  I love my brother.  He is up there with Steph in my top five favorite people on the planet.  To this day, even 250 miles away and worlds apart as far as lifestyle goes, I talk to him everyday.  Sometimes more than once, sometimes more than twice.  I thought about him a lot when my friend told us the news of her brother.  I thought about the idea that one day he could be gone. I was relieved when I remembered that I had already put him on my list of people that I ask God to let out live me. (Yes, I have a list and honestly, it is getting longer and longer) I thought about how grateful I am to my parents for doing whatever it is that they did to raise he and my sister and I to love each other and need each other and to stay close no matter what life brought us.  I thought about all of the other people I know who have brothers.  Some that are close to them, some that are gone, some that were just never really there.   I realized that my friend had a lost a piece of her.  Someone that knew her for her entire life, someone that watched her grow up, that was there for all of the milestones, someone that knows exactly what she means when she says "Dad (or Mom) is driving me NUTS today!"

You see friends, you only get the brothers or sisters that God gives you.  It's different than even a spouse.  If you don't like your spouse you can always get another one. (Okay I get it but this is just for illustration!)
But you don't get to go pick another brother just as ( much as some of you would have liked) you didn't get to pick the one you've got!  I believe that God was intentional with our siblings.  And we as siblings have a responsibility to love them, support them, be there for them and put up with them no matter what.  It doesn't matter if they are good or bad people. They are not ours to judge. God makes that clear when He tells us in  Romans 14:10:

"You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat."

It doesn't even matter if we like them or they like us.  We are stuck with the brothers that we get.  Thankfully, mine is a gift to me.  A big, exhausting, frustrating, mind boggling gift, but a gift none the less. ;) I realize that all brothers are not a gift, some probably feel more like a curse. 

Gift or curse, just like the rest of us, our brothers only get so long on this earth.  So we have a choice we can either love them just like they are and enjoy them as only siblings can or we can decide to turn away from them.  I think about my friend who will bury her brother this week.  I pray they left nothing unsaid between them.  I am beyond grateful that if I lost Mike he would have no doubt how I felt about him or what he meant to me regardless of things that we have done or said over the last three decades.   For that and his friendship and about a thousand other things about him I am once again humbled by my great God. 

Today I am praying for brothers and sisters.  I am praying for the relationships, for forgiveness, for love, for healing and for grace.  I am praying for those relationships that the Lord intended for us as family.   I am praying for you my friends. Praying that if you have a brother or sister that has somehow been lost in the chaos of life you will reconnect with them, tell them how much you miss them, make them laugh, and make right any wrongs.  Fight for those relationships that have crumbled and strengthen those that are so important to you!   Once again, I have been reminded by my sweet friend's loss that we don't get to pick when we say goodbye.  Today I am praying for her and her family.  Praying that the Lord will bring them peace and comfort in their loss.  In addition to those prayers I am praising Him like crazy for another day with Mike who makes me laugh even on the days that I don't find funny. 

Blessings friends!

I Love you Bud.
Melanie