It was around noon when Becky called me, panicked.
Cadence had been hurt.
Burned, she’d said.
She didn’t know to what extent.
I drove to Nashville alone.
They were life-flighted to Vanderbilt.
I didn’t know what to feel. Scared, yes, but scared of things that were unknown. My friend Matt Stone called me on the way. His son had seen the Helicopter. I had to sound insane. I remember being calm, but that may just be the fog of looking back on that first raw hour.
I know I got testy with the Children’s ER front desk. I wanted to go back and see my son, but he wasn’t in the system yet so I had to wait.
He looked so pitiful. His face and throat were swollen from the burn. The skin on his left arm above the elbow, yellow and dead, peeling. White and hardening, the third-degree burns. Red and blistered. He was asleep when I walked in.
Rob DeWitt, our Pastor of Care at The Bridge got to the hospital minutes after me and prayed for us. Over the next few hours, things unfolded. We’d be in the hospital for a few days probably, but left almost 24hrs after we got there. We were fortunate that the hot water missed his eye, or we would have been talking about blindness in one eye. The first conversations of skin grafts were had. We made the local paper. As the day went on, I went home and packed bags for us and returned to that little hell called the hospital where time warps and bends and hours last for days. As we settled in for our first night, I made the call to let Cadence sleep with me in the chair. At least that way he’d be comfortable and not confined to a crib by himself. Looking back, we both needed each other that night. Maybe I needed to hold my son more than he needed me. But those few restless hours bonded us in a way we hadn’t been before. That night was marked by frequent bottles, nurses, not a few tears, and music by Kellie Besch. Her songs that night were a salve to both of us. I needed to hear her sing of Christ, “His heart will be my home.” Her words soothed a quiet rage in my soul. Her words were a special grace that I won’t soon forget.
Tomorrow marks one year since the injury. I don’t have the same job. We live in a new house. Cadence won a lawsuit for his injury and will never have to worry about money like Becky and I have. He had a skin graft, but will always bear the scars of that accident.
Over the last year, we have fought fear and anger and doubt. We’ve been pulled to our limits emotionally, spiritually, and financially. But through it all, I’ve found myself going back to Kellie’s song “By Name.” Though the turmoil and fear and doubt, Jesus, who knows the stars by name and holds the earth in his hand, has heard our cries of desperation. He heard our pleas for the health of our son, and proved himself faithful not once or twice, but daily, over and over again a thousand times.
His heart has proved to be our home, a foundation firm and secure. May we not soon forget it.
Jordan Wilhite 