Bramble Rose

The cool night air of the last day of summer.  The moonlight shining down onto the large open space in small town USA.  A small stage and a crowd of people, all ages that have come to see their hometown singer who has made a living of singing her songs to adoring fans….

My husband and I were lucky enough to get a sitter and head to an outdoor concert and watch Tift Merritt sing.  We have been fans since before my first daughter was born.  At the concert, she made a comment that “Bramble Rose”; one of my favorite CDs is now ten years old.  This struck a cord with me, as my oldest child with autism will celebrate her tenth birthday next month.  

In those early years, I listened to Tift’s music as I battled my daughter’s autism and found inspiration in her words.  I think back on those days and realize that I had no idea what I was doing, and just learning as I went and hanging on for dear life.  Staying up late researching, discovering horrifying truths…my heart was ripped wide open and I felt the only way to heal it was to heal her.  I was toughened by truths that are hard to swallow and I found a determination in myself that was unparalleled.

I spent my days wrestling a child to the ground and keeping her in bear hugs so that she wouldn’t and couldn’t hurt herself or anyone else.  I spent my nights planning my next steps and reading pub med journals. I learned how to read amino acid tests.  I learned the signs of yeast overgrowth.  I learned how to communicate with a non-verbal child.  And I learned the signs of vaccine damage. 

From Tift Merritt’s song, Bramble Rose…..

“Do you think I'll be happy out on the wind?

Do you think I'll get halfway before it's rainin' again?

Will I find that I'm true when it's hardest to be?

Or will the notions I follow have all turned on me?

So my love has, grown as sharp as, a bramble rose
Like a real good woman nobody knows

Once my love has, blown as far as, a bramble rose
Just a real good woman nobody knows”

So last night, I wept as I heard I heard Tift Merritt sing.  Just the sound of her sweet voice brought back the gut wrenching pain of Marley’s early childhood.  I remembered myself, about 7 months pregnant with Skylar and on the ground with Marley, trying to settle her from yet another wild meltdown…trying to talk calmly to a child who could not talk back to me.  Daily…for hours…several times a day…this would happen.

So, like the smell of the hand soap from Duke hospital brings tears to my eyes every time…..those memories are etched into my being.  They have made me who I am today.  Passionate about healing environmentally damaged children.  Determined to tell every pregnant mom not to get vaccines.  Begging young mothers not to feed their babies GMO formula or feed their young kids GMO foods.  Spending my free time meeting with moms and dads of newly diagnosed kids to tell them there is hope….and how to get to the land of happy, healthy children.

Because my daughter will be 10 next month.  The same age as Tift Merritt’s Bramble Rose album.  And in those ten years, she has gone from a child with severe autism where the doctor told me not to have any more kids and not to get my hopes up, to a child that now has friends and is fully mainstreamed for third grade.  It has been a hell of a battle, and I was certainly toughened significantly by the experience.  I have lost friends.  And gained new ones.  New friends that understand that my “bramble” comes from a place of pain that I never want anyone else to experience.   I can't bear to hear someone else's baby has slipped away.  And that my journey won't end until she is fully healed.