Eleven Months

Lynnea has been gone for eleven months, and we all still have moments when we miss her very much.

Last weekend Ashlyn found a dead bird outside in our backyard.  She ran in the house in tears, and sat in my lap crying for nearly an hour.  As I held her, she told me about all of the things that the bird would never do again: it would never sing again, it would never fly again, it would never eat or breathe again, etc.  Eventually she calmed down and went outside again.  I told her that we could bury the bird after Daddy came home from work.  I watched her as she went back outside.  She examined the bird on the ground, and then she carefully picked it up and carried it up to her treehouse.  Part of me was appalled when I saw this, but chose not to stop her.  When she came back inside I asked her about this.  She informed me that she had taken the bird to her treehouse so that it wouldn't be alone until we buried it.  After we buried the bird, she didn't mention it again, and I thought that was the end of it.

Later in the week, while I was tucking her into bed one night, she asked me about Lynnea.  She asked me about when Lynnea died.  I explained to her that I held Lynnea in my arms rocking her in the rocking chair when she died.  Ashlyn asked if she fell asleep while I was rocking her.  I explained to her that it was kind of like Lynnea went to sleep, except that she stopped breathing and wasn't alive anymore.  Ashlyn replied in an accusing tone, "Did you try to wake her up?  How did you know she was really dead?  Are you sure she wasn't just sleeping?"  I told her that it was different than if she had just been sleeping, and that I was sure she was really dead.  She sighed and then asked what I did with her after she died.  So, I told her that I held her for a while longer in the rocking chair, and then I put her back in her hospital crib.  Ashlyn was appalled at this and angrily said to me, "Mommy, why did you put her back in her crib?!  She wasn't sleeping, she was dead, you shouldn't have put her there!  You should have kept holding her.  You should have stayed with her.  You shouldn't have left her there at the hospital all by herself."  And then she cried.  I let her cry knowing that there was no way to explain to her in a way that she would understand why I had to leave Lynnea's body in the hospital.  When she calmed down, she told me that she really misses Lynnea.  I reminded her that Lynnea is in heaven and that she is very happy there.  Ashlyn nodded and said, "Yeah, I know."  When she said her bedtime prayers, she wanted to say a special prayer beyond our usual "Now I Lay Me."  This was her prayer: "Dear Jesus, Thank you for taking care of my little sister Lynnea in heaven for me.  Please give her lots of hugs and play with her because she will like that.  I want to go to heaven too, but please let me grow up to be really old first.  I love you.  Amen."