Lynda and Her Red Nylon PJs

Look at this face.  The beautiful blond hair.  Her eyes look brown in the picture but they were a beautiful blue.  Larry and I took this picture ourselves.  He was an amateur photographer back in the days of doing your own developing and devoting a bathroom to the process.  We had a much better chance of getting a natural picture of Lynda than we did at a photographer's studio.

This was made before she went to Millcreek but she took this pair of pajamas with her when she went because they were her favorites.  It's easy to find nylon girl's gowns and pajamas now but back when Lynda was young they were rare.  Even rarer was finding a one piece pajama like this in the nylon material.  Lynda wore the nylon binding off of her purple blanket as she used it to rub while she sucked her thumb.  She loved, LOVED these pajamas because they had the "built in good feel" like her blanket.

When we went to Millcreek after the stroke while she was still in the hospital to try and find out exactly what happened, we asked them to get all of her clothes and possessions together.  We were sitting in a large board room when they brought me the small bag of her things.  Most of her things were missing.  The one thing I asked specifically about was this little pair of red pajamas because they had been so special to Lynda but they were gone.  With all of the major problems we had with Lynda's health at the time it just seemed like the final insult to her dignity to steal her clothes and toys.

Today I look at this picture and see the perfection in God's creation.  She was such a beautiful little girl who learned to enjoy being loved on and who had perfected the hugs and kisses that she gave back daily.  Three and a half months after she left this imperfect world I look at her picture and rejoice that she is eternally protected.  The weather here is dreary and we weren't able to work on putting her headstone on concrete or planting the pansies as we had planned.  I haven't even been to the cemetery today.  Instead I have been celebrating that God allowed me to know this sweet child and that she called me Nana.  I've tried to imagine with my human mind what heaven is like and what Lynda is doing today but it is just impossible to really grasp.

I wonder if she looks like the little girl in this picture or the grown up woman she would have looked like had she not had the stroke?  I know that I will recognize her immediately because the Bible tells me this truth.  Now my emotions fluctuate between thinking of what she was like as a little girl to dreaming about what she will be like when I see her again.  Both bring an anxiousness to get to heaven because this place is not my home any more than it was Lynda's.

 I'll live out my life as God calls me to do and know that the best is yet to come!