Episode 344: Even Though, We Will - Noah's Dad

Abnormalities. That is the word that changed Matthew and his wife Hannah's lives forever. They went in for a routine ultrasound, their almost two-year-old son Walker playing happily beside them in the waiting room, and left knowing that their lives would never be the same, and that their son Noah was unlikely to live. What followed was six months of hurrying up and waiting. Six months of grieving a diagnosis before they ever had to grieve a death. Six months of doctor's appointments and phone calls and learning, in real time, what it means to carry an impossible weight while the rest of the world keeps moving. Noah was born with Trisomy 13, a genetic condition that is almost always fatal. He lived for 57 and a half hours. And Matthew will tell you, that was 57 and a half hours more than they ever expected to get. In this conversation, Matthew shares what those hours looked like, what those six months looked like, and what the six years since have looked like. He talks honestly about the fog of grief, about learning to let people in, about the two questions he and Hannah developed that he believes saved their marriage. He talks about the moment a mentor told him it was okay to have a good day, and how he wept on the phone, because he couldn't imagine it. And he talks about how, five years after Noah's death, he sat down to journal on Noah's birthday and realized something that took his breath away. Noah is the only son he never let down. He was fully present for every moment of his son's entire life. Out of that realization, and out of six years of quietly sending care packages to families navigating terminal diagnoses, came the Even Though We Will Foundation, and a book by the same name, released this week. The title is their family's mantra, rooted in Psalm 23. Even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil. Not because Andy died, this happened. Not because Noah died, this came to be. But even though — and in that even though, something beautiful still can. Matthew also writes about something rarely heard from a grieving father, what it looks like to watch your favorite person in the world suffer, and feel utterly powerless to fix it. What it means to be a doer, a leader, a fixer, and suddenly not be able to do any of those things. And what it means to fall back on a faith that, in the end, held them both. Even Though We Will is available now at EvenThoughWeWill.com and on Amazon.