She has God

I just spent the last several days with my local mothers of multiples club helping with the Spring consignment sale. It was the first time I ever shopped a consignment sale and the first time I ever sold at one too. It was A LOT of hard work but it was also a lot of fun, not to mention all the cute Spring/Summer clothes I got for Avery and Lily at bargain prices. I just joined the club a couple of months ago and have only made it to one meeting so it was nice to spend several hours getting to know the moms a bit better. Its’ hard to know where I fit in; or even to feel like I fit in with surviving triplets. They aren’t twins but they aren’t complete triplets either… regardless, many of the women in the club have really made an effort to reach out to me and it has meant so much.

In the afternoon, I happened to be working the door as a greeter and had a truly incredible moment with one of the moms. I have no idea how or why the conversation started but she told me that she had four children, the youngest two are twins with a mitochondrial disorder and she herself has a condition that has caused her to have two strokes (one when the twins were only 10 days old) and as a result two brain surgeries with a third looming on the horizon. She told me this in such a way that did not make me feel sorry for her but rather she told me in a way that showed me how deep her faith in God is. How firmly rooted she is in her faith was so apparent it caught me off guard and it also gave me an opening to share a bit of my story when she said she thanks God every day for her life because “He has been preparing her for her path”. (I think it is safe to say that most people who have to deal with all that she deals with on a daily basis would be hard pressed to utter those words with such conviction.) I told her briefly about Zoe, about the three girls being in the hospital for so long, about the feeding tubes, the hearing aids, the oxygen, etc. etc…and then I said to her, (and I know I’ve said it before…but it was kind of like this time I heard what I was saying instead of just spouting off a rehearsed line I have in my head when talking to a stranger about our girls)...

I said “I know Zoe’s in Heaven now.

She can hear.

She can breathe.

She can sing & laugh.

And she can run & dance.”

And just in that moment it became so perfectly clear to me, like God was amplifying what I was saying to this mom so that I would hear myself…that yes, Richard and I and our therapists and specialists did everything in our Earthly power to give Zoe a fighting chance at life and a fighting chance at a good life with us. And yes, people with the medical conditions she had can and do go on to live productive, fulfilling, fruitful, and happy lives. BUT…no one on Earth can do what God has done for her in Heaven.

NO ONE on Earth could instantly allow her to hear angels sing and sing like one herself. NO ONE on Earth could instantly heal her lungs. NO ONE on Earth could instantly give her a strong body and nimble legs. Only God could do this for her…our battle on Earth for her would have lasted our lifetime…would we have fought that battle? No question! Of course we would have! And did we make sure her life here was the best it could possibly be? I’d like to think so. She laughed and giggled and smiled and played just like a baby should! But we cannot do what God can do, we are not bigger than God, (as much as I wish I was sometimes)…I’m just not and just like Jeanine told me back in November (a day that will be ingrained in my mind forever)…Zoe doesn’t need me anymore. She has everything she’s ever needed and then some!

Zoe wants for nothing…she needs nothing…because she has everything…she has God. Isn’t that what we as parents are supposed to WANT for our children? To have a perfect life where there is no more sadness, no more pain, no more tears, no judgment, no fear? Zoe has this. She truly truly does. When I say this I don't mean to say that her life on Earth was full of sadness and pain, her smile in all those pictures speak to that..though I can't deny that she endured far more than any person, grown or infant should have to endure. If I could have physically taken on her suffering during each minute she was in the NICU and beyond I would have.

We did the very best we could do for her with the knowledge and resources we had, but we are limited. As human beings we are limited and we can only do so much. We do the very best we can in everything we do and everything we did for Zoe. We loved her with all of our hearts and will never stop loving her like that. We believed in her strength and her courage...we comforted her, we nurtured her, we sang to her and held her, we did everything a parent would and could do for their child and we did it the best we could. I don't think Richard or I can look back at those 14 months and have regrets or think that we could have done more...we did everything we could, given our limitations...because we are not God.