Embracing the storm

I actually meant to talk about this the other day. On Sunday night we had a crazy, windy, loud thunderstorm, and Namine could not sleep.

But Namine’s inability to sleep was not due to fear of the storm; on the contrary, she loved it. Loved it. The constant patter of the rain – and patter somehow does not do the sound justice – and the flashes of lightning, the crashing of thunder, all of these things thrilled Namine to no end. Awake, sitting up in her bed, she laughed and clapped, her energy seemingly a direct proportion to the power of the storm itself. She did not go to sleep until the storm was over, close to midnight.

Namine has always been a lover of sound in general, and music in particular. I come from a musical family, although I myself lack any real talent. But both Jessica and I love to sing, so we sing to our daughter. And she loves anything with a beat – techno and trance music especially, but anything you can dance to. Groove Coverage and Cascada are a couple favorite artists around here. So I suppose the percussion of the storm was nothing but just a big dance number to Namine.

When a storm comes, our first thought is power outage. We would of course prefer that the lights stay on, as any family would. But our situation used to be more dire that that. It was not so long ago that Namine had the trach, and required oxygen – and with it, a humidification system that in turn required electricity. The O2 tanks themselves required no power, but the air compressor and humidity chamber did, and they had no backup battery like the suction machine did. And speaking of the suction machine, its battery only allowed for a total of 45 minutes running time, and so had to be used as sparingly as possible when it was not possible to plug it in. As a direct result of all these electrical dependencies, if the power went out – especially if it was late and Namine was already asleep – we had to go to the hospital in order to keep Namine oxygenated.

Thankfully, Namine is not dependent on any of that old equipment anymore. But when a storm comes, I can’t help but think of what used to be, so short a time ago – and how awesome it is that she has come so far. And when the storm comes, perhaps our response should match hers – laughter, not fear. Joy, not dread. It is a hard thing; I know, having had to sit through many surgeries, both on the part of my wife and my daughter. But God has brought us through them all. Isn’t that cause for laughter? I think so.

2 responses

  1. My dad loves thunderstorms because they remind him of how lucky we are to live indoors. It looks like you’ve got a similar mentality.

  2. I’m so glad she’s not afraid. She’s a better person than I am in that respect. She’ll be the one keeping ME from freaking out at a later date. :P

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