No. 112: The Ultimate Guide to Showing Up Well for The Ones You Love

favorite meals to drop off, favorite gifts for the bereaved and a personal look at loss--because, tis' the season.

This time last year, O’s parents called saying Daddy had been taken to the emergency room by ambulance. There was no warning, no lead up, no time for grounding breaths or prayer warriors. I was painting my nails and listening to Olivia Rodrigo when we got the call, I had shifted my headphones to listen for the baby and heard, “what do you mean he may not make it through the night?” instead.

We sat in a group video chat for hours, watching his cheeks fix into his signature smile as he put on a brave face, noticing the cracks for the first time. When my sister in law walked through the hospital door, he broke.

“You have work early tomorrow, why did you come all the way here?
Am I—
Am I dying?”

I’ll never forget those words or his face right then, not for a moment.

My brother in law took the video call to the waiting room so we could handle this the way adults are required to—crying and making arrangements in the same breath. The nurse said he had weeks if he could make it through the night. I couldn’t comprehend that thought, the maybeness of it all. Maybe months, maybe minutes.

“Lord, we’re praying for miraculous healing” was the prayer on my lips.
”Lord, please don’t take him before O gets to say goodbye” was the prayer on my heart.

When he made it through the night, we woke up with a sense of renewed expectancy and purpose. We’d fly out the next day and spend some quality time. We’d get a care plan for the liver, we’d find a solution for the heart. We thought we were safe, back in shallow water. Hope was a tingle on numb fingertips for mere moments before we were swept up in a rip current.

The rest of the story is too intimate to share here, but the moment that plays in my head more often than I’d like is me pacing my driveway barefoot in November. My brother in law was driving around town looking for O and I was clutching my chest, begging the Lord to freeze time, pause the moment, rewind—anything but move forward to what would inevitably happen next. When my sister in law called me to say we lost him, the only thing I could say—scream—is, “What do you mean? What to you mean?”

He was just here holding his new grandson.
He was just here making us pancakes.
He was just going to make it.
What do you mean?

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On Friday, we flew to Canada to celebrate Daddy one year from his passing. I woke up to a text in our sister group from one of our best friends—an honorary sister— asking if someone could bring something to the hospital. She was supposed to be induced just five days from then with her first baby, a baby they fought for with treatments and time. Not wanting to interrupt her focus, I texted my sister asking when Kayla had gone into labor. She responded immediately with “call me.” It was 7am our time in Canada and O was asleep at my side, E asleep right outside the door. When I said I’d call later, she said “No call me right now.”

With a pounding heart, I listened as she explained that our angel had lost the baby. 38.5 weeks. Five days from induction.

I was just with her the day before
I just saw the 4D ultrasound
she had just felt him kick that morning.
”What do you mean?”