Precious Days

Each moment with Kari is precious. And yes, she is still with us. She is comfortable, which makes things easier for all of us. Joan was able to sleep. Matthew is also more settled and expressing more thoughts and feelings about losing his sister.

Today is Matthew’s birthday – he is now a big teenager. Wow. In anticipation, we’ve been celebrating that for days. This evening’s party will be more focused on the tenth anniversay of his Happy Adoption Day.

Yesterday morning, Matthew kissed Kari before heading out for school. He wished her a good day and told her he is happy that she’ll soon be able to go to heaven. He looked around and then added that he wanted this (her bedroom) to be his room after she is gone (Joan and I weren’t happy with that comment). We said nothing but mentioned it to a hospice nurse later that day who explained to us how significant that was. This is Matthew’s way of saying he wants to keep feeling close to Kari. Being in her room would do that for him. Precious!

Jeremy and Sarah wanted us to have one more set of family pictures that included Kari. We weren’t sure we could do that, but we were open to it because it is important to them – a way of expressing their closeness to Kari. We agreed and we couldn’t be more grateful for their suggesting that. See the photo gallery for those precious photos taken two days ago.

This morning we talked with Matthew about his birthday and adoption celebrations. We told him that Kari will soon have a special day when God calls her, as an adoptioned child, and the angels carry her to her home in heaven.

Thank you for your prayers as we wait for that day – and before that happens, if Jesus decides to come for all his children so that we can all celebrate together, even better!