Hit Hard by Pat McLeod & Tammy McLeod & Cynthia Ruchti

Author:Pat McLeod & Tammy McLeod & Cynthia Ruchti
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: RELIGION / Christian Living / Death, Grief, Bereavement, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2019-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

Pat

Almost two years. Tammy and I kept functioning. Forgiving when we needed to.

Zach was no longer making measurable progress. His recovery leveled off. He could see, but only what was to the left of the center of his focus; nothing on the right registered in his brain. He could walk, but he needed a brace on his right leg and someone close by to steady him if he lost his balance. He could move his right hand, but not in a controlled way and not enough to strum a guitar. He could eat soft food, but required close supervision to keep him from stuffing his mouth or choking. He could remember his life before the injury, but not what happened five minutes earlier. He could immediately comprehend and respond nonverbally to what someone said to him, but struggled to utter a single word, let alone a full sentence.

Though he was far from fully recovered, we received hope that buoyed us. Zach was deemed well enough to do what he had set his heart to do since the moment he found a way to communicate with us. He was emotionally ready and physically okayed to go back to South Africa and continue the work he’d started—caring for the most vulnerable.

Many rallied around Zach’s “Don’t go back to Africa without me” plea. His school sponsored a second annual 3-on-3 basketball tournament fund-raiser. Other friends raised money by collecting pledges and then completing the Boston Marathon. Together, they donated more than enough to pay for Zach’s return to South Africa and for a 24/7 helper to accompany him.

The Sizanani Children’s Home could not provide housing for us that summer. So we traveled ahead of Zach in order to settle into a new and unknown living arrangement and to get the service learning project—the Mamelodi Initiative—functioning before he arrived. Zach would then join us when we had the capacity to care for his needs and keep him safe.

Kat, one of Zach’s closest friends and Marty’s daughter, volunteered to accompany him to South Africa the week after we landed. Kat had known Zach his entire life—from babysitting him when we lived in Montana to living with us and working as part of the student ministries team. No doctor, teacher, therapist, or family member could pull more out of Zach than Kat. She may not have had a degree in medicine, but she was an expert on our son. While therapists tried to get Zach talking, Kat got him laughing. While nurses helped him walk again, Kat had him making others laugh again. While doctors worked on his vision, Kat got him winking, and while teachers focused on testing, Kat got him teasing people. She got him to be himself, if only for a moment.

As predicted, the flight to South Africa was exhausting—for both Kat and Zach. For someone like Zach, still struggling with sleep, swallowing, balance, and continence issues, everything had gone amazingly well—until the second leg of the trip.

Partway through the flight, Zach indicated that he needed to go to the bathroom.

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