January 2008: A Prayer

dear god,

i know i don't go to church much, and i know i don't pray very often.  to be honest, i really don't know how to pray.  i've heard that if you want to pray to just pretend that you're having a conversation with someone. that's really hard for me, and i end up feeling stupid, so i never say my prayers outloud.  the term "pray" is so overused, i don't even know what it means anymore.  i don't know what i believe anymore, but i want to believe that you know what is my heart.  but just in case, here is my prayer....outloud.

please god. please make my son healthy.  please make him okay.  i can't watch him suffer any longer.  i hate every second that he struggles to breathe.  he can't move.  he can't roll over, he can't be held, he can't feel my love because all he can do is lay there with a breathing tube, IVs, monitors, and every day i feel more and more tortured as i watch him suffer.  i love my son more than life itself.  i would do anything for him.  please, please just tell me what to do.  please let me somehow take his pain and bear it so that he will be okay.  please give me his pain and his sickness.  i don't care how much it hurts, i just want him to be okay.  please put me in that room, laying there alone.  please.  i will die for him if you will just let me.  i will die any way you want me to just to have him live a healthy, normal life.  i want so much for him.  i want him to know all the joy that can be in this world.  i want him to love another person the way i love him.  i want him to run, and to play, and to have friends, and go to school, and get married, and have children.  i want him to live a happy life.  i want him to dream, and to make those dreams come true.  please.  i am begging you from the depths of my soul.  just make my son okay.  i will do anything.  i can't lose him.  i can't live without my child.  if you take him you better take me too because i will have no life if i don't have him.  i love him so much it hurts.  i love him like i never thought possible.  please god.  please.  i am here on my knees, pleading with you.  i am crying like never before.  my very existence is so wrapped up in my son that i can think of nothing else.  please god.  please just make my son healthy.  please just make my son okay.  please give him the miracle that only you can give, and the miracle that he needs and i need more than anything.  make my son okay.