Prophetic words – My Journey:

We are part of a large close extended family and at Christmas we have some big family get togethers. This photo shows just my husband’s side of the family, but it has three more members since then – via marriage and birth.

We decided several years ago that it was far more important to spend time together than to lavish money on expensive gifts.

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My children always liked to have some little gift to give to aunties, uncles, cousins, grannies and granda’s. At one stage Leah used to hand make a book mark for each person. Then, about four years ago, we started making magnetic calendars on Vistaprint. Leah used to design these. We printed two or three dozen each December. I’ve no idea how we missed the “typo” in the 2011 one, where the second Scripture reference should be 1 Peter 5:7!

When I look back at the wording Leah chose for the 2013 calendar I am amazed – prophetic words indeed. This calendar would have been made around three weeks before Leah’s first trip to the GP and the blood test that changed everything.

The calendars seemed very expensive to print that year. In all the busyness and expense of Christmas I became very irritated and I crossly told Leah “This will be the last year that you’re making those calendars – they’ve got far too dear.” Sadly those words came to pass in a way that I could never have imagined.

My Facebook “Timehop” app tells me that this day three years ago I posted a link to a song called “One Last Christmas”

I have no recollection of seeing this video before or of posting this song 12 months before Leah became ill and 24 months before her final admission to hospital.

I’m really struggling emotionally this month, but I’m also thankful that Leah actually made it home from Bristol, that she had six weeks with us in her beautiful purpose built bedroom, that she got to spend time with some of her family and friends and that we did indeed have “one last Christmas”!

“It’s the news that no one hopes for
Every parent’s greatest fear
Finding out the child you love so much
Might not make it through the year

Now the thought of spending Christmas
Without him just feels wrong
They’ve been praying for a miracle
Now they’re praying he can just hold on

For one last Christmas, one last time
One last season when all the world is right
One more telling of the story
One more verse of silent night
They’d give anything so he could have
One last Christmas”

It was on the last Thursday of June 2013 that Dr C phoned from Bristol to tell us the results of Leah’s gene sequencing. They had just discovered that her myelodysplasia and monosomy 7 had been caused by a GATA2 genetic mutation. This was not good news for several reasons. I have discussed this in detail in my blog post Gata2 Genetic Mutation
This genetic defect worsened her prognosis. The bone marrow transplant could eradicate Leah’s myelodysplasia, but no medical treatment could ‘fix’ the defect in her DNA. The long term implications of this weren’t entirely clear though as GATA2 mutations are a fairly recent discovery and research is ongoing.
The following day our lovely Belfast consultant phoned me. In his gentle Armagh accent he asked me how we were coping with this latest turn of events – I told him two things. I said that firstly we had the utmost confidence in the skill and dedication of both himself and our Bristol consultant and therefore we knew that Leah was in good hands. Secondly I told him that our God in whom we trusted would give us the strength to deal with whatever lay before us.
Prophetic words indeed………