July 20, 2005, a date now etched in stone

I have been sitting here dreading writing this post. I have been dreading it knowing how hard putting that day into words will be. There are no words to describe my aching heart. The void I feel in my life.

On July 20, after calling and finding out Isaac had a great night, after reading stories to him into a tape recorder, we arrived at the NICU. We walked in and there was a team of people around our son. A nurse came walking toward me and I knew...I knew by the look on her face that what she was about to say would change my heart forever. She hugged me. She looked at me and she said, "it won't be much longer. He waited for you to get here. You need to go be with him and tell him that it is okay to let go. His little body is just giving out. There is no doubt in my mind that he waited to have you hold him one last time." I immediately got sick. I ran out of that room and across the hall to an empty patient room where I threw up. This was all happening so fast. I had tried to be prepared, I had tried to be realistic, but I was hopeful. I prayed with my whole heart that God would heal my baby. The nurse followed me in and held my hair and got me a washcloth to wipe my face.

Then she looked at me and said "Ok, now you need to be with him." I told her I couldn't, that I didn't want to see him die. I just could not handle this. She said ok, but went and got Howard anyway. He brought Isaac to me. We sat on a bed, the three of us holding each other singing to our baby boy as Isaac's heart rate continued to slow, his breathing became erratic. The nurses came in and out periodically to check to see if he was alive and the last time she came in, she shook her head. He was gone.

We held him for a while longer. I was so scared about what holding my dying and then dead child would be like. I can say that while I never hoped to live through it again, it was not at all what I had anticipated. It was not scary, he did not struggle, it was peaceful. He was there, and then he wasn't. He drifted gently into the arms of his Heavenly father as his earthly mother and father sang him lullabies. I was there when that sweet soul entered this world and I was there as he quietly drifted out. We kissed him and took one last look, hoping to soak it all in, to etch his presence into our souls forever. Then we handed him over. We were stunned.

We did not expect our day to go that way. He had been doing so well. We packed our things and headed home. I needed to hold Luke. I needed to be reminded of God's goodness. The elevator ride down was long and lonely. We watched as other families came to the maternity floor with carseats to take their children home. This was a luxury we would never get to have with Isaac. He was gone. It felt so strange to leave the hospital that day. In my hand I carried a bag of Isaac's belongings. Not Isaac, just a few of his things. Six days, all summed up in a plastic drawstring bag. I waited until we got to the car to let loose, but then the floodgates opened and I cried, it all felt so unfair. Where was the justice in any of this? We were good parents, we would have given Isaac a good home and we would have tried our best to raise him to be a man of God. We would never have that opportunity. I wanted to believe God was with us, but I surely did not feel him. I felt as alone as I have ever been. My soul ached. My heart shattered. Howard began to drive toward home.

It was a rainy day and as we pulled out of the parking lot I took one last glance at the hospital desperately hoping I would wake up and realize this was all just a nightmare, that God had not allowed this emptiness to fill our hearts, that he DID love us and that he saved our boy. As I glanced back that was not what I saw, what I saw was a rainbow. It stretched across the sky over the hospital that day. I am convinced that God painted it there just for me. He knew I needed a sign, a sign that he was in fact there. That he would carry us through this. That he promised never to leave us and that even in the darkness there could be beauty.