Two years ago today, our first grandchild was born in Orlando, Florida.
She was born in a wing of a local Orlando hospital that had been built with generous Disney donations, and the hospital’s public spaces were decorated everywhere with characters from Disney cartoons. As it rapidly became obvious that Lena would not, and could not, survive, I became acutely aware of how much I had looked forward to one day introducing her to those characters via beloved movies and in the Disney theme parks. I was surprised. I grew up essentially an only child, with just a ten-year-older half brother; I haven’t been around little kids a lot, and I’m not especially good with them. I hadn’t even realized that I was eagerly anticipating and imagining such a privilege.
These days were, by a considerable distance, some of the worst of our lives. If we could have spared our son and his wife this terrible grief, we would gladly have done so. As it was, there was essentially nothing that we could do to help them or to take the burden from them, and that inability to help made the pain even deeper. To watch our children in pain, to see them go from joyful anticipation to stunning loss was truly agonizing.
But time passes, and wounds heal. Not completely, but more or less.
Lena’s stay with us was so very brief that I’ve feared that I might forget her. So, every time I pick up my cell phone, I see a photograph of Lena — tiny, at rest, and, to outward appearances, physically perfect.
I’ve also vowed to mark her birthday each year, and part of the way I’ve chosen to do that has been to blog about her.
I won’t allow her to have passed unnoticed. Most of all, I myself refuse to forget her. I am her grandfather. I will miss her and I will mourn her until, someday, I meet her again.
Here is the column that I published in the Deseret News when she died:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865605395/Through-cloud-and-sunshine-Lord.html?pg=all
Posted from Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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