A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer...

It’s been 7 months since March 7, 2021 – Hallelujah Sunday. Seven months since we sang and sweated and soaked our facemasks with tears every time we forced ourselves to sing my daughter’s name to our God. The 9am service brought rows of our family members. The 11am service brought friends and doctors and nurses and neighbors. I don’t even remember the 5pm service. I heard the same five songs, stood up and read the same 589 words from my sheet of paper, heard Bryan tell the same story about our daughter’s life. By the end, I was admittedly numb, but I’d like to tell you about somewhere in the middle when God took ahold of my heart and said to me, “Look around you. Look at how my people are bearing this with you. You are not alone.” Today, I watched the church livestream from March 7 on YouTube. It took me a while to find, but I’ve included a link here, in case you didn’t get to see it.  Watch Hallelujah Sunday here The livestream is from the 2 nd service. As I watch it now, I am in

It has been 6 months since I last saw Hallelujah’s face. We pulled up to the empty parking lot at McHenry’s Funeral Home, underneath a tree that was thinking about sprouting some color. I found it strange that the girls were so looking forward to seeing her again, because I was dreading it a little. What if she looked…dead? Of course she would look dead. She only really looked alive for a couple of hours of her life, right after she was born, before the seizures and the morphine and the Ativan closed her dark eyes and loosened her clenched fists. We were used to her looking not quite alive, but now we would be looking on her days after dying and I worried that it would be a rough last impression. There was no easy way to do this, so we walked through those doors and into the first room off the lobby. The room felt very empty, with the little Moses basket sitting on a small table in the middle, all alone in the near dark. One lamp stood in the corner, dimmed down to somber the mood, I

It’s been 5 months since your day 5.  On the night of day 4, we kept you with us in our bed because we just knew your time was growing short. Your sisters flanked me in bed and I let them fall asleep, each with a hand on you. Your daddy got up around midnight to get you some food and pushed the syringe of my milk one more time through your feeding tube, slowly, methodically. We moved Piper to the bed on the ground and settled in again, you propped up on my chest, snuggled into my green robe. I found a spot where I could rest with my hands still holding the robe tight around you, but not too close to your face. Somehow, I fell asleep to your tiny body rising and falling under my chin with my breaths. I firmly believe God woke me up at 3:45am. I watched you. No breath…no breath…no breath. It was so long before you breathed AGAIN. I tapped your daddy. “She’s still breathing, but I think it’s getting close.” I leaned forward to peel you off my chest, to lay you on my inclined lap, so we

It’s been 4 months since your day 4. We keep saying you lived four days, because in counting the hours, you lived only four full (24-hour) days, but you breathed air on five different days, February 20-24.  This day, day 4, was your hardest day, I think. It was the day you held on to meet your last great grandmother and your oldest “sister,” who sped down I-5 late at night praying you would live long enough to meet her. This was the day we watched you waste away. We tried to give you more to eat, upping your dose of milk from 3ml to 4ml every 2-3 hours, but you aspirated a bit, and that made your breathing harder and so we gave you morphine, which made breathing more shallow, but you seemed comfortable. This dance between balancing nutrition with medication just didn’t sit well with me. You were so tiny. When the hospice nurse came to check on us, she offered to weigh you, but you were so touch and go, I was eternally worried that if I put you down to get your weight or take your pic

We rolled into Raccoon River Campground in Panama City Beach, FL roughly 6 hours after leaving the bayou of New Orleans, driving through the tips of Mississippi and Alabama in the process. Carrie had joined our journey last night in New Orleans, where she flew in and Ubered to our campsite. Carrie didn’t have her sea legs yet, so she camped out in the passenger seat for most of the trip to avoid getting carsick. We were anxious to get to the nearby beach, but the kids were also enamored with the pool, the playground, and of course the basketball court (Judah). Finally convincing most of them that the beach would be way more fun, we packed up to make the hike to the beach.  Judah (the one we did not convince) threw a fit about going, so I stayed back with him while he cooled off in time out. Eventually, we made the trek, slowing considerably as we walked past the mini golf course across from the beach, as Judah asked over and over if we would be going there. By the time we found Bryan

I smell so bad. We just crossed the Oklahoma/Louisiana border and the kids are in the Love’s desperately looking for a slushy for Piper. This is our third location looking for one, and they have struck out again. Now we are headed to Sonic. Everything smells bad here. The air smells like hot garbage and I smell like sweaty armpits. There should be a word for this….like “hangry” except it would smash together “sweaty” and “cranky.” Too bad “swanky” is taken. And now Judah is complaining that he does not in fact want the Strawberry Shortcake popsicle that he chose from Love’s because he now wants Sonic. We are 8 hours into this travel day with no fun stops and it’s evident. “Eat that popsicle or don’t,” I tell him. “You don’t get anything else.” “It’s a hard decision, dough!” He wails. I am not very empathetic when I am so sweaty. He has now convinced Cayden to give him a bite of hers. She does not share my lack of empathy. “You have to ask mom,” Cayden warns. “I know she will say no