Inside My Heart...

It just blesses my heart to see how God can use  Lynda's story to touch other lives not only in the United States but just during this week alone there were page views from Germany, Ukraine, Mexico, Russia, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Chile and France.  I could never have imagined when Lynda was little that one day technology would allow me to write about her life in English and with the touch of a finger, a reader could have the message translated into his or her language.  

August 3rd will mark two years since Lynda has been in heaven.  In those two years I have written  255 blog entries and there have been about 20,000 views.  I cannot even begin to explain to you all how much we appreciate your support and how much this has helped with the tremendous loss we feel.  We know that we are not the only family to have lost a child with special needs.  Although I don't know you personally or know your stories, I know there are many other moms and dads, sisters and brothers, grandparents and cousins who share the pain that we have felt.  We lift you up to our Father in heaven and ask for the peace that only he can provide.  

Philippians 4:7
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (NIV)
 

I Wasn't Expecting the Memories...

Saturday afternoon, Russ and I headed for Oxford to attend a memorial service for Mary Jo Ray, the wife of our three eagle scout sons' first scoutmaster, T.J. Ray and who was also the mom of Mark.  Mark and his wife have been those dear friends that you may be separated by miles but you can always pick right up where you left off.  We all exchanged information about what our kids were doing and how many grandkids we all had and congratulated Mark on being the author of the new scoutmaster's handbook.  It was hard to believe Mary Jo was gone.

It never occurred to me until I was closing the car door and stepping out onto the sidewalk beside the Episcopal Church that this was going to be an emotional journey for me far beyond the memorial service I was attending.  As my feet hit the concrete sidewalk beside the church I realized that this was the first time I had come face to face with the first location of the Lafayette Child Development Center (LCDC) where Lynda had attended school as a six year old after we returned to Oxford from Brewton, Alabama.  In fact, this was the place that I had come to volunteer in 1973 when I was introduced by Dr. Wanda Dean, the director of LCDC to the world of special education.  It was in the fellowship hall of this church that I met Jan Reynolds who would become my mentor and John Little, Gloria Saucier,  Amy Scott, and Walter Rogers, students who would make such an impression on my life that I would not only become a special educator but would within a year become the foster parent to a child with autism, become Lynda's mom through adoption and return to Oxford so she could attend the LCDC as a student herself.

As I made it to the front door of the church, I was already overcome by the memories that were flooding over me.  As I entered the sanctuary, I looked up to see that Wanda and Mike Dean were ushers for the memorial service.  Forty-two years later I sat in the sanctuary of the church that had so graciously opened their doors to the program for children with severe disabilities before schools were obligated by law to provide services.  The sanctuary is rich with tradition with deep burgundy velvet cushioned pews and prayer benches.  The dark wood is beautiful as are the exquisite stained glass throughout the sanctuary.  There are not many rooms preserved in the style and reverence that this sanctuary displays but all I could think about was how this building with the exception of the sanctuary (classrooms, the fellowship hall, the kitchen, the playground...every inch of the facility) had been opened to teachers, volunteers, families and students with special needs for years.  No one had been concerned about the fact that the walls might be scratched or the materials and equipment had to be moved out every Friday afternoon and put back into place each Monday morning for LCDC and later the Oxford Child Development Center (OCDC)...the church saw a need and they lovingly filled this need for my child with special needs and many of her friends. 

As I fought to regain my composure to participate in the memorial service I had come to be a part of, I knew that after the service, there was a reception in the parrish hall which would require me to walk down the halls I had walked so many times...by the classrooms and into the big fellowship hall where I could still see in my mind the memories of where I first saw John playing with a ball, learned to feed Gloria and quickly followed Walter to the bathroom where he regularly turned on the hot water...a mystery unsolved to this day as to why it was so appealing to him. 

I saw where Lynda took her naps and I have to admit it was overwhelming with the emotions that played in my mind faster than I could process them.  I took Russ from corner to corner telling him about the children who fascinated me so much I returned day after day to visit and learn more about.  I talked to Wanda about the memories and how I hadn't even thought of how this was going to affect me.  I have been back in the building many, many times through the years but this was the first time since Lynda's death two years ago.  That changed everything.  When she was living, it was one of many places special to her educational history.  With her gone, it took on special significance because it was her first school in Oxford.  It was the reason she was mine.  It was where God spoke to me and put the love of children with special needs into my heart using those children I previously named to introduce me to my life's passion.

I was exhausted when I left the service.  It was wonderful to catch up with old friends and see the importance of us getting together much more frequently.  It was a sad occasion when we are saying goodbye to a friend even though we knew she is in heaven and we will see her again.  It is hard to relive so many memories of my earliest times with Lynda and even the years that preceeded my visit to the welfare department and social services in Brewton after moving from Oxford to apply to be a foster parent of a special needs child. 

God blessed me Saturday with so many warm and wonderful memories and the reminder of how God had plans for me and my life that I could have never dreamed of on my own or never could have accomplished without His steadfast love and guidance.  I don't believe in accidents or coincidences.  I know without a doubt I walked into St. Peter's Episcopal Church in 1973 because God led me there.  I have nothing but warm and wonderful memories of Lynda's time there and could never begin to thank the church members in the 1970's for opening their hearts and facilities to a group of special needs children.  They demonstrated God's love in more ways than they will ever know this side of heaven.

The rooms were silent but I still heard the voices and laughter and saw the precious little faces as if they were being streamed across the air by some new technology.  Time frozen for a few moments.  And then I blinked and was back in the present year of 2015.  Lynda was no longer a little blond six year old streak giggling as she darted from place to place.  John was no longer sitting on the floor with me rolling a red ball back and forth.  Memories are wonderful.  They can be replayed over and over when the time is right.  The thing that was palatable was the love we felt in that room over 40 years ago.  I left felling the love of the past had been wrapped around me like a warm blanket just by being in that place.  It was good.  Very good.

Lynda and Russ...

I've never written a post about Russ and Lynda.  I've started several but had to just wait a little while longer before I could put my thoughts into words.  I guess it was really more like putting my emotions into words.

I knew before I married Russ that he had a heart for children and adults with special needs.  We worked on cub scout day camps together and right away I put my boys from Scott Center with Russ because he could be trusted to meet their needs and to make sure they were treated just like any other kid at camp.

It was no secret that my life revolved around the needs of children with special needs.  My own child and those that I taught.  When we decided to get married and blend our families, Lynda was very much a part of our family.  Russ's obvious love for Lynda was palatable.  His understanding of how important she was to me was something I treasure to this day.  When we were living in Oxford, we would often go and take Lynda for rides or shop for special toys for her.  We spent hours shopping for her clothes and inventorying them so they could better keep up with them in her cottage.  When we moved to Florida he understood when I just had to make a trip home to see Lynda and when we moved to Booneville, it was he who would get up early to drive to Oxford to surprise me with a visit on holidays like Mother's Day.

Lynda has always had a sixth sense about who liked her.  If she patted you on your arm or back, she was giving you her seal of approval.  The picture above is after we removed Lynda from the respirator and she had her hands and arms free.  She played with her rattle toy and she patted Russ on his arm.  What a treasure that she was able to communicate in her own way to him that she loved him and appreciated him taking care of her.  He had advocated for her in the hospital.  He had been my rock through the week from the time we entered the emergency room on July 30th until she passed away in hospice on August 3rd.

Lynda has influenced many of us in our life work decisions.  Russ is one of those people.  When we went to Florida to teach at the beach in 2002, Russ taught a severe/profound class of pre-school age children at Silver Sands in Ft. Walton Beach.  It was a center school similar to Scott Center where Lynda went to school in Oxford, Mississippi.  Isn't it amazing how God can use one little girl with special needs to influence so many others through the years?  As he worked with families and children at Silver Sands, he always had Lynda close to his heart directing the ways he interacted with the kids and their parents just as my life experiences with Lynda always direct my paths in special education.

In the past two years since Lynda has been in heaven I could not have made it through without Russ's willingness to drop whatever he was doing and hold me when I saw a toy that reminded me of Lynda or a John Denver song came on in the grocery store.  I don't have to explain.  He just knows that sometimes the grief floods over my heart and for a few minutes, I'm fighting not to drown in sadness.  It passes and life goes on but I know that he will always understand because he knows how important Lynda is to me and how so many things can trigger memories.

He and I both know she is in heaven and having the best time of her life.  We cannot wait to see her again and praise God that he sent Jesus for our salvation and the chance to live with him eternally.  I am so thankful that Russ is a man of God who loves all children...especially those with special needs.

Matthew 18:19 (NIV)
"See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven."

Lynda and Kirby...The Connection

As most of you know my daughter Lynda became critically ill two years ago and was placed on life-support.  We struggled to find out the extent of her illnesses which had begun with aspiration during a seizure resulting in immediate life-threatening breathing problems necessitating being placed on a ventilator.  She developed sepsis and began to actually improve only for us to find she had cancer in her entire abdomen.  At this point, four days after entering the emergency room, there was no doubt that we were going to remove her from life support and allow her to be comfortable and loved in hospice in the hospital.

When I came home after she died and we were planning for her funeral, this little white dog's ears and face were soaking wet with my tears...day after day.  Night after night.  He knew I was in pain and he stood looking at me with such concern in his eyes, I would dry my tears and explain to him that I was okay.  He lay with me.  I held him and closed my eyes and could still feel Lynda near me when I felt his soft hair next to my face like hers.  I felt his warm body and the sound of his heartbeat was comforting enough to sometimes fall asleep for a few minutes.  He was my therapy.  He was my friend.  He was one of God's gifts to me to ease the pain of the loss I was feeling having experienced my child die in my arms.

Now he is sick and I lie with him and comfort him as he comforted me.  There is a special bond between this gentle soul who quickly adjusted his activity level to my needs.  I know that if I can bury a child and walk through the shadows of uncertainty and come out of it on the other side knowing I made the right decisions for Lynda...I will know when it's time to let Kirby go, too.  Like with Lynda, it was always a desire to be sure there was nothing else that could be done and being sure that when this was true to not allow suffering to continue.  We aren't there yet but it will come.  That is the same situation with Kirby, even though he is an animal and not a human child.  He is loved and he is cherished but it is a category much different than that of a child.  Still this dog has connections to my child.   And when the time comes to say good-bye to him, there are more deep emotions involved than simply losing a pet and that would be hard enough.  Kirby was here when Lynda came home to visit.  He was here when she went back to NMRC and I lay in the bed and cried.  God blessed me with a warm, soft living creature to comfort this mother when the nights were long and relentless.  He seems wise beyond his years.  Overnight he became blind.  Overnight he became old.

When it's Kirby's time to go I believe dogs do go to heaven and I know Lynda is going to be there waiting to play with her first dog.

I imagine him snuggling up next to her as he does me and hopefully she will feel me next to her through Kirby as I felt her presence with me.  God is amazing and I know that when he describes heaven as the perfect place it is going to include our beloved pets and all of the animals he created.  They can all walk the streets of heaven because they will be tame and harmless since heaven is perfect.  The Bible doesn't tell us this.  It is just my opinion and I trust God to design paradise with so much more than human hearts and minds could ever fathom.

The anniversary of Lynda's death is this August 3rd.  It will be two years.  I know that this makes Kirby's illness even more emotional for me because I'm thinking about Lynda so much.  We have said since we first got our dogs that we knew one day we would be called upon to give them up.  We decided long ago to enjoy them every single day, to spoil them and when we had to give them up we would look at the good times and try not to dwell on our loss.  We have sure loved and continue to love Kirby and have such wonderful memories of the past nine and a half years.  So happy God is allowing us to take care of him in his time of needing his people.



to read more about Kirby visit our blog at www.ourkirbydog.blogspot.com

Lynda and Kasidy...

Lynda didn't grow up with a dog and honestly she wasn't around animals very much when she was little.  Two little brothers and the 24 hours in the day were pretty jam packed.  Before her stroke, Lynda had loved fuzzy blankets and she would have probably loved fuzzy puppies, too. 

The first  Christmas that Lynda was home from NMRC for Christmas day after we had gotten our second dog, Kasidy...we wondered how each would respond to the other.  Kasidy always jumps and runs around people...very excited to get her head rubbed.  We knew Lynda wasn't going to understand what Kasidy wanted her to do and we didn't want Kasidy to accidentally hurt Lynda.

We didn't have to worry.  As soon as Lynda walked in the door, Kasidy was completely transformed into another dog.  As if she had been trained, she calmly walked up to Lynda and rubbed against her leg.  When Lynda sat on the sofa, Kasidy sat quietly at her feet.  When Lynda sat on the floor to play...Kasidy was right there beside her.  We sat Kasidy in the chair beside Lynda and you can see from the picture, Kasidy was totally focused on Lynda...looking deep into her eyes.  Lynda was equally thrilled with Kasidy...rubbing her soft fur like her fuzzy blanket she had when she was little.

Now Kasidy has another mission.  Just as she sensed that Lynda had special needs and couldn't handle the jumping and playing that she normally reserved for new people entering our home, she will be faced with adjusting her energy level and becoming more of a helper dog with her brother dog, Kirby who has been in intensive care with kidney failure and SARDS...Sudden Acquired Retinal Degeneration Syndrome which has left him totally blind practically overnight.  He will return home this Friday after having been away over a week in a much subdued condition.  Of course, Kasidy had been around Kirby the week or so before he went into the hospital and had sensed that he didn't feel good. 

The two have always helped each other. When Kasidy was outside and we had kind of forgotten she was out there, Kirby would bark at the door until we remembered and let her in.  She always paced by the door until he was back in if the weather was cold outside.  Sometimes we would just have to get him back inside so she could settle down.  It's amazing how they can form that bond but they have been together all but two years of Kirby's life so they have so many rituals...he gets the food bowls filled by his adult helpers and he barks the "blessing" until she joins him.  I have no doubt she and he will work out a system when they go outside to help him navigate the yard and back to the door safely.  They sleep together in the bed every night and they have another sister Kada-Joy who joined our family two years ago.  She has always trailed right behind Kirby when he's outside so he's going to be well covered with sisterly help.

Kirby, Kasidy and Kada-Joy have greatly helped me as I have grieved for Lynda.  When I cried, one would come and snuggle up next to me.  Kirby especially knew my emotions well and even though he has always been a hyperactive and driven dog, he would immediately shut down when I cried and I would have to explain to him that I was okay.  Dogs are amazing creatures of God.  I'm so glad Lynda got to have a puppy even for a little while.  The picture just says it all, doesn't it? 

The Men in Lynda's Life...

These three men influenced Lynda's life and probably more accurately were influenced by hers.  Larry and I adopted Lynda before either of her brothers were born.  He adored her and she felt the same about her Da-Da.  Our lives revolved around her needs and Larry was dedicated to that little blond beauty.  We walked many miles together on her behalf and she blessed our lives in ways only God could have orchestrated.

Her brothers, Kevin and Kristopher grew up with a sister with special needs which was just a normal part of our family life.  Lynda was 8 when Kevin was born and 12 when Kristopher was born.  Kris never knew the Lynda before the stroke.

These men were important in Lynda's life.  They loved her and they were willing to do anything for her.  Lynda's Daddy died three years ago today and he was waiting on her when she arrived in heaven.  That has always given me such joy knowing that she had her daddy, grandparents and siblings waiting with Jesus to greet her.

Lots of people always asked Larry and me if we knew that Lynda was handicapped when we adopted her and yes, of course we did.  We actually requested a child with special needs because we knew they were more difficult to place.  Few people could understand why we wanted to adopt a child when we could have children biologically.  The answer to that is that God called us to adopt and he had Lynda on his mind from the beginning to be our daughter.  He knew we would have Kevin and Kristopher but we were willing to obey his call to adopt and we were blessed beyond measure because we did.

Kevin and Kristopher are good men and good daddies.  They understand that all people have special strengths along with weaknesses.  They were taught about the value of a human being not being dependent upon their IQ but rather the intrinsic value of being God's creation.  I'm so proud of all three of these men who loved Lynda so dearly.

I miss you Larry.  Celebrate the third anniversary of your new birth in heaven with Lynda.  Her second anniversary will be coming up in a couple of months.  Then you two can celebrate again!

Count Your Blessings....

From the moment Lynda was born, she experienced extreme complications from having the umbilical cord wrapped around her throat.  She was flown immediately by helicopter from the hospital in Brewton, Alabama to Sacred Heart's hospital She began having seizures at just a few days old and had a heart cauterization done when she was just a couple of days old. She began taking medications for seizures when she was just a few weeks old.

As I have said in earlier posts, I was only twenty-two years old when I became Lynda's foster mother and I had no idea what Lynda's medical condition really involved.  In only a matter of weeks, I had settled into a routine of seizures, trips to the emergency room, hospital visits and many other issues that I had no prior experience with.  It wasn't until years later that it hit me full force just how precarious her life was and how much she depended on the daily anti-convulsant medications she received.  I sat beside her bed one night and thought how different her life would be in a country where medications were not readily available.  It sent shivers down my spine to realize that her life (and that of many others) is dependent on a handful of pills.

Throughout the years, I've often watched on the news as parents of children in other countries helplessly sit by their children's cots as the children slipped away due to the lack of water or food or medical help and I've wondered, why is America so blessed and why are we not more aware of our blessings?  Even within our own country, there are huge discrepancies in how our nation's children are cared for.  We seem to turn a blind eye to the fact that children are starving right here in "the land of opportunity".  We as a nation have bought into the notion of the haves and the have nots as being something that is okay.  A child goes to bed hungry at night in America and our consciences are barely pricked.  We watch it happen to children of different colors and nationalities to the point that children are orphaned and literally living on their own and we cannot even fathom how this is possible.  We are told about human trafficking of children across the world and because it hasn't happened in our neighborhood or our town, we somehow compartmentalize it away.

We live in comfort and relative safety and I wonder how many times a day we even stop to say thank you to our heavenly Father who has blessed us beyond measure?

You may not believe this but you are richer than you think. In fact, the poorest Americans are richer than 80% of the worlds population. Stop and think about that for a second. The pictures of people living in poverty in AMERICA have more wealth than almost everyone else on earth.

What this graph shows is that the poorest of Americans (with average annual income of $6,800) are richer than 68% of the world (many of which live off less than $1 a day).    The flatter the line the less inequality there is in that country.  Brazil has the biggest discrepancy between their ultra poor and wealth citizens.  One surprising result from this is that America’s poorest poor are richer than India’s richest rich (as a group).  Within India’s richest there as a vast difference between the super rich and the relatively rich for that country).

It is worth repeating---the poorest of Americans (with average annual income of $6,800) are richer than 68% of the world!  Can you wrap your mind around that?  Many live off less than $1 a day!

If you live in a country that you are  in the 32% of people in the world who live above 68% of the world's population...I hope you like I feel extremely blessed.  I know that I am undeserving and I have done nothing to place me in this group rather than the group who survives on $1 or less a day.  I also realize that those who ARE surviving on a $1 or less a day have done nothing to deserve to be in that category either. 

Lynda's life wasn't always easy but she was blessed to have fuzzy blankets, her favorite foods and people who loved her.  She had access to medications to keep her comfortable and pain free even when she was transitioning from this world to the next.  How blessed our lives are even when the world tells us otherwise.  How blessed my life was when I realized that all I needed I already had when Jesus saved me by his grace.  

When I count my blessings...Lynda is right up there at the top of the blessings God has given me.  Undeserving merit.  I am just humbled beyond words at his love for me.