Jonnie's Gone

How do I gauge life now? Can't count now how many days since transplant.. ..right now all I think of is that it is almost one day since Jonathan died. I just now asked Mike how long we will live before we stop feeling like someone is missing? How many days and weeks before our head stops asking "oh....where' s the baby?" or " oh my, who's not here?". How long till our heart starts beating without us reminding it that we must still keep breathing. What saves me is the sea of little faces that surround me looking at me to save them. Those faces say "Mommy, you're home" "Mommy stay here!" "Mommy, did you know Jonnie is dead?" "Mommy, when will he come home?"

Mike got to the hospital about 5:30 last night. The nurses had already unhooked Jonathan from many of the machines before Mike got there. Jonnie was only still on the vent for breathing and just the IVs for pain control. The nurses moved a couch for us to sit on next to Jonathan's crib. I put on some wonderfully soothing lullaby type CD scripture songs. When Mike came and we started cuddling together with Jonathan on the couch. Mercy Me's song "I Can Only Imagine" started playing and it was followed by song after song just speaking to the situation we found ourselves... .saying goodbye to Jonathan. We held and talked to him about till about 7:30 before we asked the nurses to remove the ventilator. We thought maybe he would stay alive several hours after the vent was removed but his heart only kept beating 15-20 minutes. We kept praying over him; telling him how much we loved him; assuring him he could go.....that we would be with him soon. It was all extremely peaceful and holy. The Lord's presence was vibrant and palatable. He was there, and then he was gone.

The nurses were fantastic! They took imprints of his feet and hands and a professional photographer came and took 100s of photos of us as as we spent his last hours together. Late last night my sister Lisa went with Mike with the death certificate to get the permit to transport Jonathan's body. Mike and I were exhausted. We needed to sleep before heading home. We were able to stay in the PICU room with Jonathan and we slept till 4:00 AM. Then the staff helped us wrap him up and put him in the car to bring him home. Once here we first went to the Funeral Home and spent some time there working out the details of all the funeral stuff. Oh..how hard to drive off and leave my baby there!

We were walking in our front door to greet our children by 10:30 AM. Lots of tears but also much rejoicing to be together too. My sister Katie had been here with the kids and done an excellent job preparing and talking to them about Jonathan. I will forward the obit info to this group instead of repeating those details here.

I feel dead and empty and completely used up inside. But it's okay. It is just the place to be in order to see how intimately Yahweh knows our weakness' and how perfectly only He can meet our needs.

Julee
hoping to dream of holding Jonathan once again