The wish I unwished, But now lives in my arms

Can you unwish a wish?

When you are told you can’t have something that’s when you start to want it the most. You pray for it, you hope for it, wish for it. And then eventually you come to terms with the fact that maybe they were right. And then it happens.

Expectation versus the reality is something most of us are not equipped to handle. So, what happens when it’s not what you thought it would be? When it proves harder than you have strength for?

Do you unwish your wish?

Can you?

Sitting on the 7th floor, staring down at life just passing me by, my view closer to the heavens than it is to the earth. My only friendly and familiar faces become the birds flying by, almost as if mocking me. How free they are.

The sound of cars passing below reminds me just how stuck I am.

The place I came to heal is now slowly becoming the place that wants to kill me. All I do, day in and day out, is sit at that window and watch. Slowly wishing the pain away. The kind of pain that consumes everything else until all that’s left to think about is the pain itself.

The pain goes away.

Healing should begin right?

But turns out the pain you carry was never just physical. it’s heavier. Much heavier. And it proves to be far more painful.

What do you do now? Do you wish the physical pain back?

You sit in your favorite spot quietly, but this time you hear it. The sound of your heart breaking. Loneliness becomes an emotion you’re all too familiar with, even when you are surrounded by family. The ones that love you most. The ones you love most. And still, you feel it. That ache, that emptiness. This is not how you pictured it, at least not entirely. The one place, the one person you thought would be there, holding your hand through it is now nowhere to be seen.

The day I felt most invisible is the day I knew I was seen. My health was getting better but my heart was getting worse. All I could do was sit, stare and pray.

The tiny human I brought to this world was struggling; fighting for her life and all I could do was watch. And cry. I had never seen resilience like that before. Even with the odds stacked high against her, she fought. And then suddenly her strength was just not enough anymore. The medicines needed to be stronger the dosage increased. You sit there crashing and then the guilt creeps in. I should have eaten more, I shouldn’t have ignored that pain, I should have done more when I had the chance.

That room in the seventh floor of that building started feeling like a prison. A deep, silent hole that swallowed both me and my prayers. But what did I expect? Having kept God at bay for so long? One rejection after the other and I didn’t think I had the strength to keep going.

I thought just the mention of a sick child in NICU would enough to invoke empathy. But to most, it was just another working day in the office. I had no more tears left. I could physically feel my heart crumble with every no. Broken over a child I had once prayed so desperately for and now I couldn’t even protect her. I couldn’t save her. They say no one ever dies from a heartbreak but I am pretty sure that’s not entirely true. I walked into that bathroom stall and cried my eyes out.

You see when there’s no other place to look, you look up.

So, I did.

I remembered my mothers God. The God she always promises is a miracle worker. I called him in the same familiar way she had, so many times before, right in front of me. And there, in that stall, I said it all, I laid it all down. All I had left was my mothers’ faith. I left the stall feeling lighter, more hopeful or maybe, I just told myself I did. Because I needed to feel something other than helpless. Other than guilt.

The doctor comes in to speak to me. And fear held me so tightly I could barely breathe. I imagined every possible scenario. Every what-if. But of all the endings I played in my head. I never imagined this one. You see, that day had started with them telling me my daughter needed urgent medical intervention. More than what they were able to give. They were exploring transfers. Options. Hope felt faint.

Then the doctor started talking about my mother. How they had spoken at 4 a.m. How they had prayed together.

An idea had come to her. She walked into work that morning with it.

Inspired.

Moved.

She gave it one last try.

Her final Hail Mary. And she waited… for a miracle.

The rejections I had gotten from all the other hospitals? They had led me to that bathroom stall. And there I had thrown in my last hail Mary.

My mother was right all along.

He does hear.

The news that my daughter was safe, barely 24 hours from when I was told she needed a cardiologist, dropped me to the floor in tears.

No one could quite explain it. How she went from breathing with an oxygen tube, to breathing own her own in under a day.

When previously, none of the medications had worked. When her entire first month had been spent in an incubator-

Surrounded by tubes, wearing nothing but a diaper.

And now,

She got to wear the tiny pink clothes I had picked out for her. I got to hold her, For the first time, in my arms with no tubes between us.

We got to sleep together, In the same bed.

And then, just like that, everything came together. We were discharged that day. Everything changed in 24 hours.

I went from feeling invisible,

To realizing that just because you don’t see it working, doesn’t mean it isn’t.

Now, celebrating my third Mother’s Day with my not-so-little human curled up next to me. I still can’t believe how time flies.

The gratitude I carry is beyond words. I am so glad that you can’t un-wish a wish a wish. Because my life changed for the better ever since my wish came true.