Picking up the Pieces

Welcome back to the blog. That goes for you and for me. As you know from an earlier post, my goal was to post every Sunday night about the comings and goings of our life in Argentina. The last post was 12 September 2010. The following Sunday, I had planned out my clever title, some great anecdotes, and planned to post. Later that evening, Lily (our 5-year old daughter), required an emergency room visit. A friend took us to the hospital at about 8:00 PM, and I distinctly remember thinking that no matter how late I got home, I would post to be consistent. As many of you know (but mostly for those who don't), Lily was hospitalized from 19 september until 1 October, when she passed away from Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS), developed from a severe reaction to a specific strain of E. Coli bacteria.

We departed Buenos Aires the evening of 3 October 2010 en route to Mapleton, Utah, where the funeral was held on 9 October. Lily was buried in Provo City Cemetery next to an older sister of mine, Emily, who died as an infant. The funeral was just as we wanted it to be. The day was beautiful, the flowers were beautiful, and Lily was beautiful. To be completely honest, I could write pages and pages and pages about the last two weeks of Lily's short life, but I am saving those most special memories for myself. Rest assured, however, that Candace and I had our opportunity to say goodbye to our precious little girl and we were with her as she passed.

While it has been over a month since that day, in some ways it feels like it just happened. We spent 30 days in the United States. After the funeral, we went on a road trip to Colorado to visit so many good friends who knew and loved Lily the last two years we lived there before moving to Argentina. It was so good for us to return to our last 'home' and to be loved and buoyed up by so many good people. After we returned back to Utah, we took another road trip to Southern California to spend a week with my sister. By then, we had decided that we were going to return to Argentina.

Why? This is where our home is now. While only arriving a few months ago (July), we have been welcomed so warmly by the entire community, and we have a great support system down here. Furthermore, our Argentine network of friends are the ones who carried us through this experience. Had we taken advantage of some options presented to us, we would be starting over in a new place, having to share feelings we'd rather not with strangers. We returned to Buenos Aires on 3 November ready to start picking up the pieces of our life here. If you remember the most recent blogs from early September, we had not received our household goods. Our goods arrived the Friday before Lily went into the hospital, and since we have essentially been out of the house since then, we returned to a cluttered home. Thank goodness for dear friends in Argentina who had cleaned out our perishable goods and cleaned our house for our arrival.

So now here we are. Still moving in.

Sad.

Caroline and Sam are too young to understand why they've been carted all over the place the last six weeks, sleeping in several different beds. Claire has had her ups and downs, but is now settling in as the big sister. We talk regularly about Lily and how she is still a part of our family. We plan to follow through on our previous plans for Thanksgiving with another family. We have decided that our other three children deserve their parents' full attention to rear them, and we are going to do our best.

We have been comforted by the doctrines of the Gospel as they relate to eternal families. Never has the Gospel of Jesus Christ been so real to us than during the last turbulent two months. We know that Lily is a part of our family. We know that she always will be. This experience has caused us to realize the importance of doing what's right so that we can earn the right to return to be with Lily.

I'm really not sure what else to say. We are taking it one day at a time. We are hopeful that by returning to our routine, we'll be able to have good days. And we will. We have appreciated and benefitted from all of the prayers and fasting on our behalf and thank all who have made any efforts. We have needed them. We still need them.

So welcome back again. See you next week.

We miss you, Lily.