Homegoing Memories

I hadn’t planned on posting this, but thought it might be a blessing to someone. I will give the disclaimer that even I can’t read this without crying again.

I had Good Morning America on the TV this morning (May 21, 2010) as I worked in the kitchen and I was flooded with memories.

A year ago today, Jonathon and I were cooped up in a room with a terrible view of a construction site at Cook Children’s waiting for Lydia to be with Jesus. These were the most agonizing hours of my life! Knowing that she was suffering in her earthly body brought me to my knees to pray that the Lord would take her quickly. The first time she stopped breathing long enough for me to believe that she was gone was early morning May 21. Jonathon had run out to the cafeteria to find us breakfast and I had Good Morning America on in the background. Lydia was lying peacefully on the bed while I picked up the room to make space for our families coming soon. She stopped breathing and her color went ashen. I waited for her to take another breath and she didn’t. I sat there rocking her envisioning her being greeted by the loved ones gone on before her. And just I started to sob, I laid her down to look at her and she gasped for air like a fish out of water. I had even called Jonathon and told him it was time and to come back quickly. The whole day was full of these moments. Holding our breath waiting to see if she would take another, watching her color fade, another gasping breath and she would be pretty and pink again. It was hard to believe that she was a sick as she was. She looked so perfect on the outside! She had a beautiful head of dark hair and dark eyes. Her little fists were clinched so tightly that her fingernails were bruised, a symptom of the hypoxia.

Those gasping breaths and the clinched fists visited me in my dreams for months.

I held her every moment I could. I cried when I had the tears to cry. I tried to comfort her, but knew that comfort was only going to come when Jesus took her home. I longed for a miracle and prayed for one, but prayed that if healing was not God’s will, that He would take her home quickly. We knew our chances of a miracle faded with every period of her not breathing. We had 24 hours of waiting. We agonized over her and our heart broke over and over knowing that she would never grow to say “Daddy” or “Mommy.” I had been holding her for at least two hours straight. My tailbone hurt and I finally had to get up and relieve myself. As I got up, she took one gasping breath and I kissed her little cheek and handed her to Jonathon. I held her for her last breath and Jonathon held her as her heart stopped.

The doctor came in and called a time of death, 4:25 pm May 21, 2009. Jonathon handed her back to me. Her body was still warm in my arms, but her color was gone. Our families came in the room and gathered around us and said goodbye. They left us there with Lydia, we had more papers to sign. I removed her monogrammed onesie from her body and folded everything neatly breathing in her scent. We picked up the diaper bag and left her there having no idea what funeral home would come and get her body.

I don’t remember much of the drive home or that evening.