The day you went to Jesus

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 could watch your chest for breaths. Daddy rolled over with his orange stethoscope and listened. I looked down at the spot where you had been laying on me and noticed the indentation your feeding tube had left on my chest.  

Your daddy said, "Her heartbeat is there, but it's very faint."

Daddy woke up Cayden because we both knew her fear of waking up to find you gone.

As we huddled together, we watched you take one more shuffling breath, and waited a long time before one last half a breath, almost just an intake of a hiccup, and that was it. No struggle, no more fight. You didn’t breathe again; you were with Jesus. Cayden stroked your cheek and laid her head against my arm and cried for her baby sister. A few minutes passed and we woke up Piper and told her. She climbed into bed with us and clung to you. Eventually, we went and got Judah from his bed as well and made the dreaded trek down the stairs to tell our family, fitfully sleeping below us. We handed you to Daddy’s parents, and I walked out to the motor home to tell my parents. My mom didn’t come in for a while – and once my dad came in, he said she needed a moment by herself to loudly grieve.

After about an hour, we thought we should inform hospice that you had passed away. We woke up the nurse on call, and Ashley would arrive about 45 minutes later. When she knocked on our door, we were halfway through a Hallelujah song. She asked when you passed away, and we told her 3:51am. She didn’t check for vitals or anything, she just sat at my desk and waited for us to let her know when to call the funeral home. Everyone got to hold you and say goodbye, even though we all knew you were already gone. Your little cheeks grew cold, and you turned a slightly grayer color, but really, you remained mostly the same. I took out your little feeding tube and took a few pictures of you in a little basket, wearing your micropreemie hat once more. It was your first photos by yourself and you weren’t even really there. We didn’t want to wait too long, didn’t want your body to start changing and leave a bad image with your siblings, so we told Ashley that it was time to call the funeral home. She made the call. The kids did not want their sister to be taken away. The cries that came from Piper especially will stay with me forever. Ashley left quickly, letting us know a man from McHenry would be coming within the hour. She left so fast, she forgot to take the strong box of unused morphine with her. I don’t blame her – the grief was overwhelming in those four walls.

The man from McHenry came through our door already visibly shaken.

“We don’t do this often,” he told my father-in-law.

He meant babies. Normally, if a baby dies, it dies at a hospital, not at a home. So normally, a mortician will pick up a baby from a hospital morgue, not a home lit up in the middle of the night with a couch full of children wailing for their little sister.

He was probably my parents’ age, a big man with a beard and eyes filled with sorrow. He said our kids were the same ages as his grandchildren. As we gave our last kisses, we set Hallelujah’s body back in the basket and I tucked her soft yellow blanket in around the edges. It was the same basket I took pictures of Piper in as an infant. The photo hangs on our bedroom wall.

“Do you want me to take her in the basket? I can put her right in the front seat with me and she will be safe.”

“I guess so.”

There was never a good time to take her.

But eventually, I took the basket in my hands, pulled it away from Cayden and Piper’s outstretched reaches and handed my daughter’s body to this grandpa with huge hands. He assured us that we could come see Hallelujah again at the funeral home when we came to make arrangements. We had entertained the idea of an autopsy, but in this moment with my daughters crying out for their sister, I couldn’t imagine explaining to them that their sister was going to be cut into and examined. I realized what a selfless action it is for people who donate their loved ones to furthering science. It was a sacrifice I was no longer willing to make, and so we didn’t talk about an autopsy. The door opened, sucking the air out of the room as the man nodded and walked out into the dark, our baby’s body in his arms. I’m glad he didn’t drive a hearse for some reason. All he needed was a minivan with a front seat for his featherweight 3-pound cargo.

This is when the howling started.

We all just cried together, Bryan and I wrapping the kids as tightly as we could in our arms, rocking their cries of grief and exhaustion. For the past 5 days, I hadn’t been able to properly cradle anyone but Hallelujah. That job was done now. It felt very strange to only be needed by three kids now.

Slowly, the sun rose, exposing February 24^th as an unseasonably clear blue day.

We stayed plastered to the couch, soothing exhausted kids while the grandparents busied themselves making a “Hallelujah breakfast” of French toast, eggs, potatoes and bacon. We had been eating oatmeal every morning for the last 4 days so this was a welcome change – though oatmeal seemed fitting for those days between.  

With the beautiful day calling to us, we needed to get out of that sweaty, curtained house. Packing up my mom's van with gear, some of us rode and some of us walked the quarter mile down the road to the overgrown Adair Village baseball field.

Everyone played, even me, despite my mother-in-law’s protest that I just gave birth. I peed a little running the bases, but nothing was going to keep me from playing.

We laughed together at my mom’s cheating and Judah’s tongue sticking out as he ran after Bryan’s big hit in the gap.   

I don’t remember who won, but Cayden probably remembers because she kept score.

We all got popsicles on the way home.

Slowly, the grandparents and Carrie started to gather their things and peel themselves away from our home. So intertwined were we that it felt wrong to leave, but without reason to stay, everyone acknowledged that there was life to attend to. Bryce and Julie needed to see if their house had regained power yet (after the ice storms the week before) and my dad needed to check on things at church. Life began to churn back into motion again as we all recognized that the day we’d all been dreading for the past 4 months had come and gone and now what? We had no plan, no roadmap. All I knew is it was Wednesday and I promised my kids they could go see Hallelujah on Monday at the funeral home.