It may seem that I am making such a big deal about my “good news.” I don’t mean to gloat.  But a curious thing has happened to all four of us in the house when we learned of the good news.  We were all stunned.  It’s normal to be stunned, right?  But then four days have passed and we are still stunned.  What bugs me is that four days have passed since the “good news” of the near-total reversal of my husband’s heart condition and we all got sick after it.  My husband started to feel muscle pain as did I.  My kids suffered fever, muscle pain and  headaches.  We all sat around talking very little and when we did talk, we talked of anything and everything else but the “good news.”  This started to worry me.

Everyone I informed of my “good news” had a similar reaction: “Wow, that is good news.  Maaga ang merry Christmas ninyo.”  And they were truly happy for us.  This made my lack of emotional response even more incongruous.  So I kept thinking about it: why are we all so numb?  I prayed about it because my biggest fear is that it is a symptom of unbelief.  Am I being ungrateful?  So I prayed and asked God to show me why we were feeling so numb.

Early this morning, I was awakened as usual by the alarm clock.  My husband was awake long before the alarm went off so when it finally did, he immediately turned on his bedside lamp.  The light hurt my eyes and I found it difficult to focus on the small face of my wristwatch’s dial to see the actual time.  Then it hit me!

The emotional numbness and disorientation I felt at the good news of the near total reversal of my husband’s heart condition is not so very different from the numbness and disorientation that trapped miners feel when they are finally rescued from a mine shaft.  I imagine that when miners get trapped in a mine shaft, they are in terror and in uncertainty in the dark.  The longer they stay in the dark, the more the terror builds up but at some point, they get used to the dark and they get used to the terror.  They slowly accept the proposition that they may lose their lives.  As they cannot control the situation and they cannot extricate themselves from the trap they find themselves in, they seek to control their emotions.  They go through what we know to be the four stages of grief: shock, anger, bargaining and acceptance.  They have not yet died but what they grieve is loss of their sense of physical security.

Imagine further that those miners have gone through the four stages of grief and they have accepted the possibility of death as becoming a plausible and inevitable reality.  Their hopes are built up and let down with every attempt to rescue them.  They go on an emotional roller-coaster ride; their emotional lives are like a pendulum that swings between hope and despair.  When they finally tire of the emotional roller coaster, they decide to come to terms with both possibilities (being rescued and dying in the dark). They then achieve a certain amount of peace despite the horrendously hopeless situation they are in.  They achieve a routine.  The hopeless situation has been transformed into a new “normal” for them.

Then they are rescued.  Just when they had that they might not be rescued anymore, they are finally rescued.  When they leave the dark mine shaft, they are leaving the “normal” existence they have carved for themselves in the dark mine shaft.  They are going back up to a life they had already said goodbye to.  They have been changed by their experience and the former life they will be coming back to might not make sense to them anymore.

Have you seen miners like those on the news?  There they are, blinking uncomprehendingly in the daylight, blinded and disoriented with the light because their eyes have gotten accustomed to the darkness.  Suddenly, they feel lost because the light penetrates them and everything is so big and scary compared with the dark hole which they have made their “home” all the time they were trapped.  For a long while after they have been rescued, they will have nightmares of being trapped in a dark hole.  They will lie and stare in the darkness.  They find it difficult to function in the former life they had left behind and have now come back to.  Their loved ones are so happy but they are not.  They cannot even feel relief. They are angry and sad and afraid all at once and they don’t know why.

That is what psychology calls post-traumatic stress.  If it persists and deepens and prevents the rescued miner’s functioning in the everyday life, it becomes a post-traumatic stress disorder.  That explains the sudden muscle pain and headache we all experienced.  This explains the kids’ fever.  This explains our numbness and our inability to celebrate the “good news” of the near –total reversal of my husband’s heart condition. We are undergoing a post-traumatic stress reaction.

In 2008, we were devastated when we were told that three of the four chambers of my husband’s heart were enlarged and no longer functioning properly.  It took a while but we reconciled ourselves to the fact that he will inevitably die soon of the very heart disease he had.  It was difficult but we grieved the loss of our sense of security and we grieved the loss of my husband’s good health. We have begun mentally and emotionally preparing ourselves for his eventual death despite the roller-coaster and pendulum like swings of his symptoms and complications.

My children were forced to become mature at 9 and 10 years old in 2008.  Today, even when you see them with their classmates, they are a breed apart and they gravitate toward classmates whose parents have died or who have abandoned them.  They are not carefree and they exhibit a dogged determination that is not usual for their age: they are middle-aged souls in teenage bodies.

And me?  Well, I have become this big bowl of emotional jelly.  People who knew me before hardly recognize me now.  My emotional responses have altered m y personality somewhat.  The overriding concern of my existence the past four years is to enjoy my husband’s company for as long as I can.  I have begun gathering and documenting memories as prodigiously as Mrs. Imelda Marcos collected shoes. I have become more openly affectionate with people I love. I have shunned the company of people whose lives are not touched by disease because they just do not understand me and I am too tired to make them understand.  I have begun preparing for widowhood.  My husband advised me to sell the house and purchase a condo for the three of us.  He gave me permission to migrate with the kids if I so desired.  My husband even gave me permission to remarry if I so wished.  He is slowly making us liquid to prepare for the expense of his last hospitalization and funeral.  We decided that cremation is best and we have made mental note of the nearest crematorium. We have discussed all this as mature adults.  This was all we could do to control the turmoil we found ourselves in.

We have begun hoping and praying for the Lord to come soon so that we can be raptured all together.  We have made peace with the fact that in heaven, he and I will no longer be married.  We have begun to think of heaven a lot.  We talk about it a lot.  This has become our hope.  We have set our affections on things above, no longer on things on this earth.  On days that we felt really bad, we comfort ourselves with the thought that heaven is a far better place because it is our eternal home.  We will see each other when we all go home.

And then, all of a sudden, we are told that we have experienced an unexpected miracle of healing.  My husband’s heart condition has been reversed.  Imagine my incomprehension and panic. Imagine my consternation. Imagine how the rug has been pulled out from beneath me yet again.  Imagine the fatigue of my tear glands. Imagine my shame: I have been such a drama queen for the past four years and for what? All those tears and fears were for nothing because he’s going to live and not die after all? Imagine my sense of panghihinayang at the time and the opportunities that I had let by because I wouldn’t leave my husband, afraid that he will suddenly die in my absence even if I left the house only to go to the market or the grocery store!

What am I going to do now? What is “normal” life for me now?  Is it the life with the disease?  Or is it the life without the disease?  He might not die immediately of heart disease but he might get shot or run over by a truck.  My joy at his recovery might be short-lived and I will be back to being a bowl of emotional jelly.  How will we live now?  We have changed so much, we hardly know who we are without the disease.  Where do we start picking up the pieces? Which pieces will we pick up?

We are undergoing post-traumatic stress…. this is why we are not jumping for joy….

What is our assurance?  Everything works together for good to them who love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.  Our light affliction is but for a moment and it is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.  Nothing separates us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord: disease did not separate us from him and neither will good health.  He will never leave us nor forsake us, not through death and certainly not through a life of health.  Our God does not change although we change all the time.   God is our Good Shepherd who will lead us through the valley of the shadow of death.  He has restored my husband’s physical health, He will surely restore our souls to health as well.