A Mother's Love

Sigmund Freud once said, “I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.”

I can think of a need even stronger than a father’s protection – that of a mother’s love.

Mothers have to be strong, a rock for their children to stand on, a foundation of love from which they can launch into the tumultuous sea of the world. They are an island to which their children can always return if that sea proves too rough or unpredictable to safely swim. Fathers may be fixers, protectors, and tinkerers, but mothers are healers, lovers, and soul catchers. Mothers manage the different challenges of life with grace and poise, but are always ready to protect their young with staggering ferocity.   

Yesterday was my beautiful wife’s birthday. Elizabeth Ann (Chamberlain) Miller was born 35 years ago to a set of wonderful, loving, and attentive parents in Marietta, OH. Over the years Elizabeth’s dad has commented on how much Elizabeth reminds him of his own mother as she tends to our small brood, doles out discipline, or collects all of her “chicks” together for dinner. All I can say is what a wonderful woman Grandma Chamberlain must have been.

I have spent 16 years with Elizabeth, loving, laughing, and building a life. That time has been a whirlwind from the beginning. From college on to graduate school, then into the workforce, having kids intermittently, being downsized, finding new jobs, buying a house, moving, business ventures, having more kids, and finally to the present she has stuck by me, every step of the way. We have had a host of miniature disasters and victories throughout life, but she has always been my stronghold, the lighthouse among the rocks, a beacon on which I can base my course.

During our cancer journey Elizabeth has been the very definition of poise and grace. The love that she administers to each of our children has always been breathtaking, but in this time of crisis and upheaval in our normal, she remains a pillar of strength, a shoulder to cry on, a tender hand to hold as we walk down this path together as a family.

Hazel’s cancer is a challenge for which neither of us were prepared. It was something we never wanted to experience, a burden we didn’t believe we could bear. No job, house, or car has ever mattered as long as our children were happy, safe, and healthy. Unfortunately, it was not in our destiny to avoid this trial and we are firmly entrenched in its throes now. This is certainly the largest and toughest storm we have ever had to weather – I would say in our lifetime – but we will weather it nonetheless, together, as one.

We are often asked how we discovered Hazel’s leukemia, after all, the actual symptoms of the cancer can often be difficult to spot until the disease is much more advanced. The symptoms of leukemia are often subtle, presenting first as what looks like a common childhood cold or phantom aches that mimic growing pains. Paleness, sleeping longer and more often, low grade fevers that dissipate within 24 hours, generalized leg pain, and night sweats are all early warning signs for leukemia…but they can also be symptoms of the flu, a viral infection, or a common cold. This is why the early onset of a blood cancer is so often missed, especially in children that cannot coherently talk yet. It is difficult for them to describe what they are feeling and the most likely problem is more often than not the simplest.

Elizabeth still questions whether we could have caught Hazel’s symptoms sooner. At least once a week, I will find her looking through pictures on her phone, comparing Hazel’s skin tone from one to the next, looking at the dates, and then checking her calendar to see what was happening during that time in our life. She has asked our oncologists numerous times what caused Hazel’s condition, what could we have done differently to protect her or keep her from this experience. In some way, Elizabeth continues to look for the mistake, for the shortcoming in our parenting style that has led to one of our children having cancer. But the truth is, there is no mistake, there is no shortcoming. As parents, we did all that we knew how to do and to the best of our abilities, but our lives were still touched by cancer.

Leukemia is very well understood at this point, it’s very treatable and in many instances curable, particularly in the childhood form. But for all we know about leukemia, the cause of the cancer eludes even our most focused scientific researchers. There is evidence that now points to genetic conditions that may predispose certain patients to the disease, but there is not a definitive genetic pattern that indicates someone will develop leukemia at some point in their lifetime. There is also not a specific environmental condition or chemical that is known to cause leukemia. And that is what bothers Elizabeth the most. The not knowing, not having an answer as to “Why” or “How” her baby got sick. I can see that it plagues her, keeps her up at night, troubles her soul at times.

And while we may not have an answer as to why Hazel is sick, I know why Hazel is alive – her mother. Elizabeth has an amazing bond with our kids, the strength of which can be seen on a daily basis as she “reads” them. She is the most empathetic person that I know, she literally feels our children’s pain, knows what their hearts want, and lives her life looking through their eyes. I know my kids love me deeply, but the adoration and affection that they have for my wife is on another level. It’s a connection that can only be had from living inside of a person for 9 months, listening to their heartbeat, feeling what they feel, solely dependent on them for life. I am not jealous of this connection, but I am thankful.

Leading up to Hazel’s diagnosis, Elizabeth “felt” that something was wrong. She noticed over the course of a month that Hazel was sleeping a bit more than usual, taking longer and more frequent naps, and appeared pale. She also would have intermittent, low-grade fevers that would dissipate within 24 hours was sweating profusely at night as she slept. In hindsight these signs are easy to piece together, but I can’t stress enough how disconnected they all seemed at the time, while we were in the midst of living life and not thinking about cancer. But Elizabeth noticed. She noticed and she was not afraid to take action based on her own intuition.

I was away on a project for work, gone for 4 weeks and on my way home, when she took Hazel into our pediatrician and asked for blood tests. Hazel looked and acted, by all accounts, fairly normal for a kid her age. At least there were no large glaring warning signs at the time, only her mother’s deep-seated worry that something was horribly wrong in her baby’s body. I thank God every day that we have the pediatrician that we do. He listened to Elizabeth, and more importantly, her concern became his as well. Our pediatrician has always been a source of comfort and solace for Elizabeth if she felt something was amiss with our kids. He shares the same mindset that we do in that for most childhood ailments, medical needs are relatively minimal and not cause for concern. But when he performed a general physical exam of Hazel that day and listened to Elizabeth’s recounting of the previous couple weeks, he became worried.

Hazel’s bloodwork came back with slightly elevated white blood cell count, very low red blood cell count, and very low platelet count. We immediately headed for Nationwide Children’s in Columbus, where we then began our journey into the abyss that is cancer.

Nothing about this journey is pleasant and it is often difficult to see the good in what goes on during our day, but Elizabeth’s intuition as a mother is a true blessing. Hazel’s cancer was caught exceptionally early. Her white blood count was high, but only slightly, which in combination with a few other factors put her in a lower risk stratification for treatment. Elizabeth worries that she missed the early warning signs, but the truth is she picked up on them so early that had she taken Hazel in at any other point prior, there would have been a chance of misdiagnosis and precious time would have been wasted in her treatment cycle.

Some people are destined for greatness, born to make a difference, if only they have the courage to follow their heart. Elizabeth was born to be a mother. She has always been amazing at it, but never more so than now, during Hazel’s struggle. She displays strength, compassion, empathy, and humility on a daily basis, serving as the perfect example for our kids. Someday this will all be behind us; it will be a story told around late night dinner tables as our grandkids sleep soundly and safely in their beds upstairs. Our girls will ask Elizabeth for advice and will draw on her wealth of experience in the darkest of days to understand what it means to be a mother.

I love Elizabeth more and more with each passing day. I love her for who she is and who she has become: the mother of my children, the keeper of my heart, and as Hazel’s savior. Our future may be uncertain, but I know it is bright because she is by my side. Together we triumph.

“Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.” – Proverbs 31:28-29