Ducks At Sunrise
There is a painting in the chapel at The Homewood called Loons in the Mist. It is an extremely moving piece of work that touched an inner part of me like no other piece of art that is there. We did spirituality workshops in the chapel with Rae-Anne. She helped me to explore how God was at work in all my life experiences. To show me how God had had a hand in all that had happened in my life was a wonderful gift from her.
In May of 1986, my husband and I had two very significant events take place. On the eighteenth, our first child was born.
She was born in cardiac arrest. However she was successfully revived and placed in an oxygen tent and laid in an incubator to keep her body temperature at an optimum level. We soon discovered that she had two serious heart defects that would require surgery. She was flown to London, Ontario for the surgery when she was three days old. I had not even held her yet!
While I recovered from the birth, Brad went ahead to London to be with this precious child. In London, Krista was intubated as, she was having trouble breathing on her own. There, I finally got to hold her and sing to her. Every moment we spent together was sheer bliss. I found it very hard to leave her bedside - I just couldn't get enough of her. Within a couple of days we were informed that the surgery would not be done as her heart defects were part of a syndrome that was incompatible with life. Trisomy 18 is a relatively rare extra chromosomal birth defect. There are no documented cases where a trisomy 18 child has lived until their first birthday.
We were told to go home and prepare for our child to die. We headed back to Windsor and Krista was flown back.
On May 29th, the neonatal unit at Grace Hospital was opened up for any who wished to meet our little girl and then say our goodbyes. At 10:15pm Krista went from her Daddy's arms to God's arms where she stays in His loving care.
So we greet each day that God gives us in silent prayer and contemplation of His love for us and for our children. He gives us children to raise for Him on this earth.
I painted this picture in a grief and loss group as a memorial to Krista. The little girls face is surrounded by a heart and there are red teardrops of blood coming from her eyes. I really believe it was as hard for her to leave us as it was for us to let her go. She was born in spring and so I covered the snow with spring flowers, daffodils and tulips. The rays that emanate from the setting sun show both hope and longing. The snow covered trees and meadow indicate, for me, a part of me that I don't know will ever thaw. Her birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks. She would be fifteen this year. I wrote to Robert Munsch yesterday, he's the fellow who wrote the book, Love You Forever. A dear friend gave me that book after Krista died. There is a song in the story, that the parent sings to the child, from which the book gets it's title. It goes like this
He searched the whole world over and found two parents true - to love this child while she lived - to mourn for when He took her home to live with him. Thank you God for the twelve wonderful days that you allowed us to feel Your love through this little child. Amen.
It was not as hard to say goodbye as it would be never to have known you.
