Events from Thursday May 8
We're back home this afternoon doing errands that need to get done before tomorrow's viewing. They are necessary, but they are difficult. It just seems wrong to bring our daughter home from the hospital one day and then make funeral preparations for our other daughter the next day. As I said before, the world seems out of alignment, but it seems this is the reality we are dealing with and so we do the best we can by God's grace…
We had to decide on what outfit to bury Hope in—even though the casket will NOT be open. (We have made sure to remind the funeral director about this. No need to have an infant seen like that! We said goodbye to her body on Sunday.) Laurie decided to bury Hope in the outfit she had originally intended to dress her in when she came home from the hospital—and the same one her sister did wear yesterday. Perhaps it is fitting that Hope will go home (to Jesus) in the same outfit that her sister came home in.
We also got a delivery from the NICU at Hopkins that contained the little belongings box for Hope. We went through the box with tears—mostly mom but it wasn't easy for dad either. They sent a nice card signed by a number of the NICU staff and also included pictures of Hope and other things that were with her when she was in the NICU at Hopkins—a cross, an angel, blankets, her outfit, etc. The card they sent said:
When someone comes into our lives…
And they are too quietly and quickly gone,
They leave footprints on our hearts…
And their memory stays with us forever.
I liked the sentiment very much; it seems true of our darling Hope. Even in the brief time she was with us, Hope Marie Ward certainly touched many lives and made an impact on quite a number of people. I pray that her memory will indeed stay with us forever.
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"I love to tell the story..." I live my life at the nexus of science and faith. I'm a scientist by training, and paid to tell the story of NASA Science, but I'm married to a United Methodist pastor and active in my church. I believe that "threads of glory" from God's larger Story weave their way through all the other stories we tell and I seek to expose them through my writing. I live in Waldorf, MD, with my wife Laurie, my son Brady (~16), and my daughter Becca (13).
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