Family Pictures

It's been a little over a year and a half since we've had family pictures done.  We've had the Christmas photo snapped by friends of family and lots of pictures taken on our own camera.  But it has been a while since we've had our family photographed by a professional.  With Garrett nearing braces and Matthew getting closer to losing his top baby teeth, we decided to update our frames.  I hope you enjoy as well.

The Family:

Garrett:

Matthew:

The boys:

The boys with Lori:

The boys with Troy:

And, of course, Lori & I

Welcome to our living room.

Stone for Flesh

I wanted a baby daughter and I got a stone instead.

I love her marker, in a bittersweet sort of way.  It is is the stone we chose.  With the cross, and the lamb and the verse.  It has her name.  Our baby Kate.

Yet it it also makes me think of those vacation T-shirts.  “My parents went to Maui and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt”

This will likely be a hard week.  Monday our daughter’s headstone was put in place.  Thursday was supposed to be her birthday.  She never got a birthday.  She had left this world before her tiny body was born.  When we got to hold her, inside a tiny bag wrapped in a pink blanket, she was already gone.  Gone from our lives but not our hearts.  Leaving only dreams that existed like their own disembodied spirits cursed to roam the corners of our minds haunting us with what might have been.  Reminding us of what we’re missing.

We’re missing Kate.

The room we had been preparing for her sits empty.  It is a sort of empty library.  The crib has been disassembled and hidden from site.  I have finished the painting, but instead of the pink and gray that we had chosen the walls are more cape cod and decidedly less little girl.  This is hard.

It is hard but not impossible.  We continue to cling the mercy of our Savior and the verse that is etched into the rock sitting above Kate’s resting place.  Let the little children come unto me.  And do not forbid them for such is the kingdom of heaven.

Our hope and strength is from God who also said He would take from His people their heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh.  Someday, in eternity, we will leave beside this stone and rush to embrace our daughter for the first time.

At least that’s how I imagine it. 

For now, we continue to relearn what we have forgotten.  How to live normally, how to heal, how to move on while still honoring the past—without forgetting our daughter. 

And in the meantime, we have a stone.  A memorial to honor Kate with her name.

Like the ancient Israelites set up stones of remembrance, as Jacob made a pillar for his wife Rachel, we too have had Kate’s name commemorated in rock. We seek to honor her, so we write, as if to brag about her—like any parent who loves to overshare about their child.

It is because we love her that we miss her.  It is because we miss her that this week is hard.  It is hard but not impossible, and this is because our God gives us hope. 

And though we never imagined the need or a stone such as this, we are grateful for the opportunity to give her this small garden bed and granite nameplate.  A place where her tiny body will wait until the glorious resurrection while her spirit has already sped off into His glorious grace. 

I started to write thinking more of how happy I was that my daughter’s gravestone had arrived. That she had received a stone of recognition proclaiming that she had lived, and that she was, and is, loved.  I hadn’t meant to meander into musings of sorrow and grace. 

But grief is weird.

God is good.

And we love our daughter.

Home Again

More than a week has passed since I posted.  Normally that would be pretty good for me, but the last week feels like several years were compressed into it.

There has been healing.  There has been pain.  There is still a long road left to travel.  Thankfully, as I said recently, we still have our Savior's hand to lead us forward.

Many days pass in a sort of fog.  Even when it doesn't hurt I'm trying to remember what it was like to move forward in any sort of normal manner.  Those of you who have already walked this path are sure to relate.  I walk into a room and forget why I came.  I start a sentence and loose total understanding of what I was going to say.  I forget things that I usually have no problem bringing to mind.  It's mildly unsettling.  I wonder when I will begin to find my footing again.

I don't want you to think that I'm in a panic.  I just know that I'm home but normal is a long way away.

Soon I'll post pictures of Kate's funeral and some of the week that took place around laying her to rest.

Until then I'll trust that I don't need to know the answers or the future as long as I know Who holds the future.

Chasing Shadows

I didn't want to get out of bed this morning.

By the time last night hit I felt stretched thin and empty.  Not just from grief. From not knowing how to handle the remaining challenges, from replacing a clear picture of our future with a murky fog full of sadness and unknowns.

Finding a cemetery is going to be a bit more challenging than we had expected.  Most cemeteries out here are public and are limited to the occupants of the municipality.  Since we never had the chance to legally adopt Kate that means, in the eyes of municipal coding, she is not part of our family.  She cannot stay there. The places we had originally wanted to go are closed to us.  We have to widen our search today.  There are private cemeteries to contact and lots of decisions to be made.

Burying Kate is going to be expensive.  I am not surprised by this.  As a pastor I have walked with people through this process.  We could have just left her there, but we couldn't. She wasn't our legal responsibility but she was our daughter.

Financial burdens are far from the most important issue. They are just the insult to the injury. We will still be paying off the money we borrowed to adopt Kate while we are scraping to find money to bury her.  I'm tired of asking for money--we have already been blessed by so the generosity of so many people.  So many people gave towards Kate's adoption, some people gave so much.  We feel sorry for them too.  We didn't want money to help us through our sadness, we needed help to bring home a blessing of joy.

Maybe there is a little money left that had been sent off.  The sad truth is most of the fees are spent on actual services rendered BEFORE you get your daughter.  There is not return policy.  That's not to say that everyone hasn't been trying to work with us.  It is what it is.

Last night, a dear friend from Lori's childhood set up an account to help with Lori's burial.  We're not expecting or hoping for much but the gesture was immense.  Thank you all for being with us during this process.

One of Lori's college classmates posted something on her facebook post. I am posting it here without his permission because it was beautiful and comforting when we needed it to be:

Thank you Lori for sharing Kate. She is more than a story. She was a girl snug in a womb, unaware of a multitude of strangers that were cheering for her life. Before her birth, she was chosen, named and set apart. People from far off places provided support and well wishes. Plans were made, rooms were decorated, and glee increased in anticipation of her arrival. She would enter this world loved and wanted. She would receive the homecoming we all long for.

Kate received her heavenly homecoming, but in a way we can't fully understand. And now I hurt with you. Home feels less like home when we are separated from loved ones. We hurt because Kate is loved. Hugs to you and your family.

So thank you to those of you who have been there for us.  Just reading the comments on Lori's facebook has been incredibly meaningful.

It has, after all, been a whirlwind.  A nasty destructive tornado tearing at our lives.  But in the wake of the destruction there is still love: the love you have shown to us, our love for our daughter, God's love for us.

By yesterday, I was feeling pretty emptied of hope, because hope moves toward a future.  I could no longer see any semblance of the future I had been excited for.  Every step forward was motivated by dedication and responsibility not for sense of hope or of an expected destination.

And yet, I know that As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death HE is with me.  I do not need to know where I'm going because the One who holds my hand is guiding me.  I know that you cannot garner any perspective in the middle of the valley, you have to walk up and out and through to see clearly.  We're walking.  Our Savior is leading.  That's enough.

That would be enough, but your kindness (the two of you who are probably reading this) has been like thousands of little fireflies helping to illuminate the path we are walking.  Each prayer has been a tiny blessing and a tiny light.

Of course there is Lori and the two boys who are my world.  That is destination enough to keep moving.

Word vomit, I suppose.  Writing things out helps.  Lori is a good writer.  I'm a guy.  My thoughts get stuck in my head.  This keyboard is giving them release.

Since the news about our daughter broke, I have wanted to be moving.  I wanted to do what I could for Kate, for Lori, for the boys.  It was kind of a role reversal, really.  Normally Lori is the one who wants to take immediate action while I want to sit back and think, carefully plotting our course. Somehow, we switched hats. In the middle of everything, it was an interesting study.  Yesterday, I part of the day it felt like I was standing outside myself, watching, the way you do in a dream when you have that third person commentary over the actions your dream-self is taking.

This morning I've wanted to sit and type.

I don't know what today holds yet, but so far I haven't felt like moving.  Still I have a lot to do: Find a cemetery that will let us bury Kate for a price we can handle.  Really fun stuff.  Love dictates I get out of bed and get started.  Time to take Christ's hands and take a few steps.

Broken Dreams of Pink and Laughter

Today our world changed abruptly.

For the last few months we have been eagerly awaiting the birth of our baby girl.  In an unexpected whirlwind we had been chosen to be adoptive parents.  We couldn’t have been more excited. 

Tonight we got the call that our birth mother had given birth prematurely and our daughter had been born stillborn.

We had 51 days left until her due date.  51 days.  It seemed like such a short amount of time.  She was further along than Lori’s own brother when he had been born early.  He is a healthy adult today--no ill effects from his early entry into this world.  How could this have happened. Every check-up had shown a healthy baby—we have pictures of her ultrasound on our refrigerator.  Just today our family all began a contest guessing what her actual due date would be.  We didn’t know it would be today...

The news came through the ministry that had helped connect us with our daughter's biological mother.  We told our boys.  There were lots of tears. The tears have not ended yet.  We were asked what name we wanted on her death certificate--did we want the name we had discussed?  How did we want to proceed?

We didn't want to proceed.  We just wanted to wake up from this unwelcome nightmare.

Yad Vashem is the name of the Israeli Holocaust Memorial.  It means ‘a place and a name.’  I’m not trying to comment on enormous human atrocities like the Holocaust—nevertheless I found myself thinking of the meaning of those words tonight.  A name and a place. My daughter deserves both a place and a name.

Her name is Kathryn Ella Grace Bassham.  She is loved. In this life she will never get to hear me say those words to her but she is loved nonetheless. 

Today, her place is with the Savior.  My only hope is in His mercy.

While that is her true place we will travel to California to look at her tiny form and to arrange for her burial-- to give her a place here, as well.  It’s the only tangible way I know to show my love for her.  I won’t get to watch her take her first steps or walk her down the aisle but I will make sure she is provided for in death.

I don’t know what this will look like.  Legally, we didn't have the chance to finalize the adoption.  Though she is our daughter but we don’t know what sort of red tape or policy we will have to navigate. . .

How can you so badly miss someone you’ve never actually met?

Yes, our world changed today.  When we thought of our lives from March forward it always included a little girl with her two older brothers.  Four months ago, we didn’t even know she existed.  Today we can’t imagine that our life will not include her.

There is a lot we don’t know.  How to pay for our remaining adoption expenses we've already incurred, how honor her in death, how to go about disassembling her bedroom.  How to move forward with any grace or dignity, or . . . how to move at all.

We also pray for Kate’s birth mother and birth father.  They are grieving.  We pray God will minister to them.

We praise our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  We do not understand but we trust His leading and look to Him for comfort.   Our hearts are heavy but God still reigns and He is still good.  All the time.

I miss you little Kate.  I’ll have to wait a little longer to actually meet you.  I love you.