Stilts of Grace: the story as I can tell it

INTRODUCTION

After some prayer and consideration, I've decided I'd like to begin sharing the narrative accounts I write as I process the events of Heidi's illness and death. Though I've already shared a lot both here and on Heidi's caring bridge site, these are deeper, more intimate memories of events that led to the deep awareness that torrents of grief, grace, and PTSD can co-mingle. 

I will be adding "chapters" as posts, but they will all be compiled after posting in a complete chronological story following the link "Click here for..." just under the blog title. My hope in making this public is that it offers grace - human and divine - to others encountering their own insurmountable difficulties, whatever they may be. Please be patient; while tremendously healing for me, this form of writing does take time and has to be balanced with family life. 

Note: this isn't reading material for children, but I am aware that Heidi's children may someday read this, so I will do my best to avoid descriptions that would be harmful for them to read - if this makes the story less compelling to those outside our family, so be it.    

Brief background: Mark's Mum & brother Adam live in Scotland. In August, '22 we were blessed with the opportunity to take our whole family to visit London, where Mark grew up, and Scotland where we spent a week with his family. Adam lives not far from Loch Ness. This mountain adventure was one of the harrowing highlights of our trip.

PROLOGUE: Scotland, August '22

We drove northwest towards the coast and the mountain hike chosen for our afternoon. The sun and blue sky battled thick low clouds, alternately bathing the countryside in light and shadow that rolled like gentle waves across the lush Scottish hills. I was grateful that Mark was the sole driver for our family on this trip. He grew up in the U.K, and despite having lived in the U.S. for nearly 20 years, driving on the “wrong side”of the road was more natural for him than it could ever be for me. We both felt safer with him driving, but it tugged at my heart that he had to concentrate on the road while I could enjoy the views of his homeland. I refused to squander this gift, and soaked in the beauty of this country with its winding lanes, deep green pastures, ancient treeless highland mountains, and quaint coastal villages.

Pulling into the small parking lot at the foot of our mountain, I glanced up and thought, “This looks doable.” The sky was now overcast and a slight breeze prompted me to grab both my fleece hoodie and jacket, rather than choosing one or the other as I’d planned. Strapping 6 month old Felicity onto my front and making sure all of our children had the layers they might need, I felt ready. Adam, a seasoned sportsman, had hiked this mountain numerous times including with a young niece, although he admitted he had mostly carried her on his shoulders. He had assured us it was quite manageable for even 5 year old Sophie. I had no reason to doubt him, and looked forward to stretching my legs.

Before our hike, our mountain behind us

Although so many parts of this trip were moments I had anticipated, it was for this day that I had intentionally spent months preparing. Never a fan of exercise for its own sake, this trip of a lifetime, and the hope of hiking in the Scottish Highlands, was the carrot I had needed to prioritize reacquiring strength and stamina. The birth of our seventh baby at age 40, just 6 months prior, did not dissuade me from putting in the effort to make sure that I could fully enjoy an afternoon of “hillwalking.”

No sooner had we set foot on the path, a manmade steep trail made of a multitude of small smooth stones crammed together into a slick pavement of sorts, than I began to question just how vastly I may have  underestimated what this particular adventure might require of us. I thought first of my other pair of shoes that I had left in the States that might offer more grip that the new pair I had chosen to bring. With Felicity in the carrier, too little yet to be on my back, I was unable to see my feet; I could see the path ahead, but the placement of each step in these slipper-like trainers was a matter of blind hope. Surely this unusual and challenging trail was just an entrance? No doubt soon we would reach a wider, easier walking trail that would wind its way gently up and around the mountain. 

I was grateful when we exited the manmade stone trail onto a grass-lined switchback, but I  found it was not a wide, flat, kept trail like all I’d hiked in the U.S. This was a narrow, uneven and and unpredictable path, hewn only by others on their way to the summit. There was little to grab but grasses if I stepped wrong, but I was managing and our children were in their element, nimbly scrambling on ahead. 

We stopped for lunch at a large table-like rock that was instantly a playground for “King of the Mountain.” Having not yet begun to wind around the mountain, we could still spot the now-tiny parking lot and the speck of our full-size van far below us. I ate my lunch and discovered a tick beginning to its own luncheon feast on my arm. Adam made short work of getting rid of it for me, and we packed ourselves up and continued our hike. It was colder now, and taking off my hoodie I turned it upside-down, slipped Felicity’s dangling legs into the sleeves, and brought the rest of it up over her body, tucking it into the sides of the carrier. Wrapping my open jacket around us both, we kept each other warm, and I was grateful for my decision to bring both hoodie and jacket.

Lunch

As we rounded the back of the mountain, a strong damp wind howled against us and the trail, no longer a taxing-but-fun clamber up a mountain slope, grew precarious. The rocks and boulders over which we were now climbing were slick from the wet air. On my left, offering nothing to grab ahold of, was the craggy side of the mountain, to my right was the steep descent down rock and grass, no trees or brush to break a tumble down, down, down. With Felicity on my front, unable to see my own feet, and with nothing to grab for purchase, I realized with horror that my instinct to remain protectively close to my children was hazardous. An attempt to catch their stumble or fall could throw me off balance and might kill Felicity. I could not protect or assist them, and with only two other adults to their six lives, they had to climb alone. 

“What are we doing? Why are we continuing? I hate heights! What if one of my children tumbles down the side of the mountain, or I slip and Felicity’s head bashes against a rock?” There were so many frightened thoughts racing through my head. Whatever my vision had been of hillwalking or a hike in the Scottish highlands, it was not this. This was a treacherous climb up a mountain with many young children in tow.

Assurances of, “We’re nearly there!” kept us moving forward rather than turning back. If we were nearing the summit and what was promised to be a smoother descent, there was little to  be gained by turning around. (In hindsight the first few of those assurances were miscalculations.) I sensed paralysis waiting to grip me if I dwelt on fearful thoughts, so in an act of sheer determination, I chose trust: trust in Adam who had been here before, and trust in God to either protect us or give us grace for difficulties when it was needed. With that, I resolutely silenced the, “What ifs.” If anything happened there would be grace then for that particular circumstance. With each step we took, I spoke the truth silently to myself that in that moment everyone was fine, and enthusiastically encouraged our children who climbed on, unafraid. We moved onward and upward, I keeping my eyes on the path just ahead so I could guess where my feet might go two steps on. I refused to look to my right, and hardly dared to watch my children knowing I couldn’t help any missteps, entrusting them to the grace of God. 

Joey was fearless

Gaining the summit at last, we arrived at the narrow peak, barely large enough for the 10 of us. The wind blew fiercely and rain spattered our faces as we looked out on the sea, the surrounding mountains, and the base of our mountain far below. Victorious but frightened more than ever on the exposed peak, we didn’t stay long and eagerly began our descent. 

View from the summit with the carpark visible below

With relief that we had made it, and that the future of this adventure was promised to be less stressful than what had passed, my spirits were up. To my tremendous relief, as we descended around the far side of the mountain, the path widened and soon we found ourselves hiking through what appeared to be open sloping fields. 

We're alive & on the descent!

Our children sped on ahead, leaping downward. However, we soon discovered the open fields were bogs through which the appearance of a path did not forecast how deep into squelching muck an errant step might go. Two of our children were startled but uninjured victims of the deceptive bog. In contrast with the fear of serious injury earlier, these misadventures made us laugh while we consoled them. Joey’s rescue left one of his shoes behind, and Mark reached deep into the muck many times in search of it before successfully pulling it out. A step Sophie took landed her knee-deep, but she was pulled out shoe and all. Both children recovered well and in no time their spirits were up and they were once again charging ahead, finding boulders to climb on as they waited for the more cautious bog walkers. 

Joey, not long before his bog mishap

As we reached the full circumnavigation of the mountain and found ourselves again at the odd manmade stone path that earlier had felt so awkward and cumbersome, I was utterly delighted to see it, not least because it meant we were nearly done. Reaching the van with two mucky children, but otherwise uninjured, we heaved sighs of relief and shouts of joy at what we had accomplished. My months of preparing for this hike had paid off, but more importantly, through the grace of God I had faced and conquered fear on that mountain. Adam, none the wearier for his quick walk through nature, laughed as Mark and I recounted our experience of what felt like a harrowing adventure.

Evidence of the bog

I was blissfully unaware that this mountain and all it had asked of me in those brief hours was a mere noonday shadow of the mountain looming unseen on our horizon. My memory of victory over fear and utter reliance on grace this day would prove to be a source of strength when just months later we found ourselves accompanying Heidi on her climb up to her final summit.  

CHAPTER 1: January 3rd

“Don’t forget to send us pictures of palm trees!” I said, kissing Mark goodbye at the airport. He was off to warm and sunny Florida for the annual January conference for Saint Paul’s Outreach (SPO), leaving me to solo-parent for the next few days. While many moms are seasoned pros at doing the mom thing on their own, the blessing of his trips being so infrequent comes with the challenge that I am not accustomed to the upheaval in routine, nor do I sleep well while he’s gone. I had a little trick tucked up my sleeve this time, one that I’d tried with great success on our recent U.K adventure: melatonin. While I was hopeful that at least my sleep might be better this time around, included in these days was the re-entry of the younger 3 to school after their two-week Christmas break. 

Returning to school routines after the holidays was hard in the best of times, and harder when I was on my own. Not only that, but I had heard rumors of a possible blizzard and I inwardly rolled my eyes at yet another giant snowfall perfectly-timed during Mark’s absence, leaving me to the exhausting shoveling in the wake of the demise of our snowblower. Minnesota’s 6 months of winter were not my favorite. At least this year our older children were still off school and could help with the shoveling. There was also the silver lining that if enough fell, as was predicted, I would receive the early morning phone call announcing school’s cancellation for the younger kids, giving us all the gift of extra sleep for one more day.

Mark’s yearly absence just after New Years had resulted in the development of a few traditions for those of us at home. Most noteworthy was the assembling and decorating of post-Christmas clearance gingerbread houses. One year I managed to find them at 90% off, and now, whether they were a great clearance deal or not, the expectation was that we’d spend a day on that activity. This year I had found some fun options including an Oreo house that sounded much tastier than the usual cardboard-like gingerbread (not that they were ever eaten). 

The annual tradition, just before the first call

As usual, the kids eagerly unpacked their kits, dividing up the houses and decorations. I was thrilled that they were all old enough to not need a lot of oversight; I enjoyed their enthusiasm for this craft much more than participating in it myself. Part way through their fun, my phone rang with a call from my mom. Leaving the kids to themselves I ran to another room and answered. 
“Hello?” 
“Hi Betsy,” Mom began, immediately indicating by the tone of her voice that something was terribly wrong. My first thought was of Kate, my younger sister. She was in the military overseas and while she wasn’t actively engaged in anything immediately dangerous, she was the one to which my concern pointed first. 
“…Kevin just took Heidi to Urgent Care.” she continued. 

Relief coursed through me; Kate was fine. Heidi probably needed some IV fluids, I reasoned. She had been unwell with the same GI bug that visited us all after our Christmas get-together. In the midst of caring for my own family I had loosely followed the messages about who had what, when, and how bad, but I was surprised to hear that her case was lingering this long. It seemed a wise move to get her to Urgent Care and I assumed a bag or two of fluids would set her on the road to a quick recovery. I genuinely didn’t think this warranted the concern I heard in Mom’s voice; I cared but I was not terribly concerned. I said I’d be praying and asked her to keep me posted. 

I returned to the kids and their gingerbread houses, explaining that Aunt Heidi was at Urgent Care but I was sure she’d be fine. Mark called a bit later and I snapped pictures of each kid chatting with him using my new Christmas gift, a retro plug-in handset for my cell phone. I had no inkling of just how much I would be using this sanity-saving device in the weeks ahead. 

When Mom called again a bit later, the news about Heidi was no better and much more confusing. She informed me that Heidi had been diagnosed with sepsis. 
“Sepsis????!!!” I repeated more to myself than her. My thoughts scrambled as I tried to make sense of this: do people get sepsis from GI bugs? Are there degrees of sepsis? How? What happened? 
Still, I rationalized, if they were at Urgent Care she was already getting the attention she needed. Surely this must be a minor case, though I could not remember that being a “thing.”  Mom had no further insights but would continue to keep in touch. Now I wanted to talk to Kevin and get the rest of the story. I was terribly confused. 

Around 8pm I finally spoke with Kevin, grateful that my new handset allowed me to hear so clearly, not least because Meg was wailing in his arms making it difficult to understanding everything he was saying. I gathered that he was at home, having returned briefly to say goodnight to their children and allow my parents time to arrive to spend the night with the kids. His plan was to rejoin Heidi after their arrival. Meanwhile, he explained, Heidi was being transferred via ambulance to the better-equipped E.R. of a local hospital for further care and observation. The fact that Kevin was home encouraged my continued belief that with she was in stable condition and there was no reason to believe anything but that with the help of medical care she would be home soon. 

As we chatted, I briefly mentioned something about the my own episode of rational assumptions that led to delayed care nine years prior, only to underline that I could understand why Heidi had declined to go in any earlier. In my case, I had chalked up my days of a continued high fever and body aches to a summer influenza that would simply have to work its course. Only when I began losing both my short-term memory and stamina to walk from bedroom to bathroom did I allow Mark to take me to Urgent Care. A simple pulse-ox reading suggested pneumonia, confirmed by x-ray. I was dumb-founded; I’d had no cough, nothing that would indicate a bacterial infection that left for longer could’ve killed me (it became a terrible cough only when the antibiotics began breaking up the infection in my lungs). Heidi’s case seemed similar enough, and I still felt everything sounded as though the outcome would also be similar to mine. The impression I was left with as I hung up was that she would be on a 24 hour observation hold at this E.R. Whether this was what Kevin had said, or simply what I had interpreted through the haze of emotions and a screaming baby, I really can’t say.  

That evening I had my weekly 9pm Adoration hour. Our parish’s beautiful Adoration chapel had been open for nearly a year, and it had already been a source of tremendous grace and peace in my life. Those weekly hours had taken me through the anxiety-ridden final weeks of pregnancy with a baby that I was somewhat irrationally convinced I was going to lose, and, as I would see only in hindsight, filled the pages of my journal with words of preparation and consolation I would so desperately need in the unforeseen coming months. Just the previous week had offered an experience I can’t describe that renewed my awe and wonder at a God who hides himself in a tiny host that radiates all He is to those who desire to see and know Him. 

A daytime view of our beautiful Adoration chapel. 
I was sitting in nearly the same place that evening.

As a busy mom I always looked forward to that hour of uninterrupted prayerful silence. Certainly this week I had an important prayer to take with me, but as I sat there in the presence of the loving King of the universe, I simply felt confused. I prayed into Heidi’s illness while calling to mind all the times in our family in which circumstances not unlike this have turned out fine: cancer, frightening chronic diagnoses, premature babies… God seemed to have a theme within our family of taking us to the edge of trust & fear, and rescuing us. I had no reason to doubt, and every reason to believe based on his pattern of goodness in our lives, that this would be the same. Not only that, but while this was clearly serious, from my vantage point it seemed like the kind of serious thing that the miracle of modern medicine would be able to handle. Surely by tomorrow Heidi would be on the mend. My prayers that hour were a mix of growing concern, disbelief, and the bombardment of thoughts like, “Will Heidi’s milk supply withstand this illness and separation? Poor Heidi! Poor baby Meg!” “Monica’s birthday is tomorrow, poor Monica!” “Why did Heidi of all people get sepsis following the GI bug that visited all our homes, but no one else did?”

Returning from Adoration that evening, I got a message from Mom with the most concrete information I’d been given up to that point, offering the first linking pieces of this confusing puzzle, “Kevin is staying at the hospital tonight. Heidi is seriously ill. Temp at or above 103. Treating with IV antibiotics for strep, but dr is flummoxed by what might really be going on.  Monica has now gotten Meg to sleep. Meg has been refusing all attempts with bottles or cups. She does suck on a wet washcloth, but I’m concerned about her getting enough fluids.” 

I knew some of Heidi’s children had been treated for strep just before Christmas. It certainly seemed plausible to me that strep had been lingering somewhere in her environment since then. This offered no explanation for why she was so ill from it (this remains a mystery) but its presence and possible cause of sepsis certainly felt like puzzle pieces that could fit together. 
I responded, “I just got back from my holy hour at Church, praying for her. My heart is breaking for Meg, too. Have you tried liquid on a spoon? If she's been spoon-fed at all she might be more willing to put up with that?”

Her reply offered the hope I hadn’t expected so soon on the heels of her previous message, but it was the news I had anticipated would come at some point, “Will give that a go at the next opportunity.  Kevin called. Heidi’s temp is now below 100. Said everything is improving, except the stiffness in her extremities from the perfusion.” 

Content now that soon enough all would indeed be well, I turned off the light and easily drifted off to sleep, ears primed for the likely early morning school-cancellation call.

CHAPTER 2: the phone call

The phone rang, reaching my ears only because I was primed to hear the automated call announcing school's cancellation due to the blizzard we were anticipating. It felt so early, what time was it? 4am. Why was the district calling so early? I reached to answer the phone only so it would stop ringing but found an unfamiliar number instead of the name of the school district. 

"Hello?" I managed through a stupor of sleep. 

A sickening terror ran through me as I recognized Kevin's wordless voice, agony flooding the, "Uh.....Uh....Uh," he kept repeating. His words, when he found them, offered no comfort, and as I listened half my heart slipped behind a shielding wall of numbness. 

Kevin was saying, “Heidi…uh…she…the doctors say if you want to say ‘goodbye’ you should come now…”

“What?” I interrupted, frozen, mentally grasping for anything that might make this make sense. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I…I know it’s the middle of the night. It’s ok if you don’t want to come…”

“No! No, I will come! I just… What happened?!” I was so confused, plunged into this abyss of what sounded like horrible nonsense. 

“Her blood pressure dropped in the night. She lost consciousness. They say there’s nothing more they can do and that her heart will stop in the next hour or so. I’m sorry if I sound matter-of-fact, I have done my crying, so much crying.”

In my own state of disorientation, his lack of tears were the furthest thing from my mind. What he was saying about Heidi still didn’t make sense, but if it was true every moment on the phone was a moment wasted and I had to get to her. 

“I’m coming! I’m coming now. Where are you?”

He gave me the name of the hospital and a room number. 

Where was that? I’d never heard of it; it couldn’t be close. “Ok, I, um…I’ll…” my mind raced through what I needed to do and the impossibility of getting there in time.

"I’m on my way.” 

CHAPTER 3: the fire of unreality

I hit “end call” and stared blankly at the small blue post-it with the name of a hospital and a room number freshly scrawled on it. Utter loneliness encircled me and I brushed away a baffling urge to sink into a sleep of avoidance that whispered invitingly that this was all a misunderstanding and if I slept I  would awaken in the morning rescued from this hellish nightmare. 

The air around me felt charged but I was shielded from the grief of this shock and horror by the new and unfamiliar wall of numbness. I was inexplicably unable to experience the intense sorrow that I knew should be crippling me. Confusion and terror were my immediate companions, but grief felt remote, and that frightened and confused me further. When in the hours, days, and weeks to come I cried, I felt like my own observer.

Initially this did not feel like a grace, leaving me instead questioning whether I, who up until now could not even handle the idea of attending funerals of complete strangers without dissolving into a puddle of tears, had suddenly turned into a psychopath. But as I discovered, it was a protection and a profound grace that allowed me to bear the burden of the days to come. The numbness thawed slowly over the course of the following months, returning me to myself, plunging me into an ocean of past, present and future grief. But now in this moment this grace served me for the first time as unencumbered adrenal propelled me forward.

I needed Mark. “Why a business trip now?! Why 4am?! Why aren’t you here?!” the thought a panicked wave of helplessness rolling through me. I needed his consolation, wisdom, and grasp on reality. I tried calling him but knew his phone would be on silent as he slept. No answer. I tried again and again. I prayed for a miracle that he would wake and notice. Nothing.

“I can’t just drive across the twin cities in an unplowed blizzard and leave the kids alone at home!” my rational mind screamed, racing through whether there were any other options. My parents, normally close by, were an hour away in Rockford with the Keiser kids because...Heidi. I had to…what? I had to get to Heidi if what Kevin had said was true. It couldn’t be. But it was, and my only option was an objectively reckless one: I would leave my 7 children in the middle of the night to drive through a blizzard, buoyed only by the hope that God wouldn’t allow both Heidi and me to die on the same night. Surely he wouldn’t. If ever there were a good reason for abject stupidity or unbridled faith, depending on how you see it, it was this. I pleaded for protection for myself and my children, and set to the task of leaving.

What was next, then? A mental list wrote itself, each item a lead weight slowing me down. Would I never get out the door? I had to tell Iain, our oldest, a high school freshman, that I was leaving. “Oh gosh, I have to tell him,” the thought paralyzed me. 

“This isn’t really happening, it’s going to turn out fine, she’ll be fine, and none of the kids should have to know how horrible this moment is,” I pleaded, silently. But I had to tell Iain because I had to leave. Parents don’t just disappear into a blizzard at 4am. I had to let him know he was in charge and that required an explanation, one I didn’t believe myself. Even with adrenal coursing through me, the disorientation was crippling. My brain was working feverishly to find something familiar in this fire of unreality. “I have to feed the baby.” Yes, that was normal. It was unusual to wake her up, but if I could feed her and get her back to sleep, that felt blessedly normal. But first Iain. My heart pounded.

The small lamp in my bedroom illuminated the dark hall, offering light only as far as the children’s bedroom doors. I stepped silently towards the boys’ room, apprehensive, unbelieving, but fiercely propelled by…what? I was numb. Dread? Duty? The electric current running through me directed me forward, further into this nightmare. Suspended in disbelief, I quietly opened the boys’ door and walked through the darkness to the bunk where they were sleeping. Iain, nearly 15, slept silently on the top bunk tucked under his blue comforter. Joey, our miracle preemie turned goliath 2nd grader, slept below snoring softly, feet towards his pillow, head resting on his giant stuffed animal tiger, limbs askew. 

“Iain. Iain!” I whispered urgently, reaching up, gently shaking his sleeping body, trying to get his attention without waking Joey. 

“Hmm. What? Yeah?” he slurred back at me.

“Shhh. I need to talk to you right away, please come to my room.” I turned and went back down the hall.

He appeared moments later, squinting in the dim light of my bedroom, still half-asleep.

I began, sickened by the words coming out of my mouth, “Uncle Kevin called. Aunt Heidi is dying. I need to leave now to make it in time. I’m going to feed Felicity and then take off. I don’t know when I’ll be back. No one goes to school until I get back, ok?”

“Uh, sure,” he blearily replied. I was surprised and relieved at his tired acceptance and lack of questions. 

“Good. I love you. Go back to bed,” I finished, wondering if that was really all that was needed. It was too much and not enough, but I couldn’t offer more. I didn’t understand it myself, and frankly, there wasn’t time. Cell phone in hand, I headed to the end of the hall, this time to 10 month old Felicity in the nursery. 

The nursery project had been a Christmas Break family affair. Felicity had slept in our room since birth, an arrangement that had worked perfectly, until it didn’t. Our little extrovert, she began to enjoy socializing until all hours of the night and by Christmas Mark and I were desperate to get her into her own room. Lydia, our newly-minted teenager, and Sophie, a cherubic Kindergartner, had shared the small room at the end of the hall for the past few years. The two of them together were an amusing pair of mini-mom and adoring younger sister. They enjoyed rooming together, but Lydia was ready for something different and Sophie didn’t mind moving into the larger room next door with Lucy, four years her senior.

Less than a week before, Lydia’s loft bed had been taken down and sold, and in its place a new-to-us white crib was acquired and assembled. All four girls delighted in the shuffling of rooms, roommates, sleeping arrangements, dressers and closets. Not only that, but this was the maiden voyage of one of our guest rooms turned older girls’ bedroom. Knowing that the girls would need to expand into that bedroom with the addition of Felicity, baby girl number five, Lydia and Annie had been begging to move down there ever since we brought Felicity home from the hospital. Being stair-step sisters, Annie younger, with a relationship more akin to oil and water than love and friendship, we were cautiously optimistic that their shared excitement to room together was the herald of something new. Time would tell, but we weren’t going to dampen their enthusiasm. They had eagerly helped with repainting, arranging, and decorating their new bedroom, and at last they were sleeping in it.

Despite my concerns that Felicity might require a few nights to acclimate to her new crib  alone in a new room, she slept through from night one. Now I stepped quietly over to her crib to break the spell of the new nursery and wake her. Not wanting to startle her, I put my hand on her back and softly stroked the pink and white polka dotted fleece sleepsack, watching her shift in her sleep. She was such a beautiful and good-natured baby, the delight of the entire family. She cracked an eye in quiet confusion as I adjusted my hands around her and lifted her scrunched sleepy body out of the crib. The lamp from my bedroom down the hall offered just enough light to create a halo of her red tufts of hair framing her silhouette in the darkness. I settled into the armchair, adjusting the floral throw pillows that were a nod to the developing nursery theme that was my current project. 

I was grateful for an excuse to pause for a moment as she nursed. This was normal-ish. I tried calling Mark again. Still no answer. What was the name of the hotel? Who was he rooming with? I couldn’t remember. I recalled that I had numbers for quite a few of his coworkers. Dismissing my dislike for phone calls as well as my phobia of inconveniencing people, I started through my contact list, dialing every person I could think of who was at the conference. Over and over and over each number rang, went to voicemail and I hung up. I could only imagine what thoughts might go through their heads when they woke in the morning and saw my missed call from 4am. Some of them, good friends of Mark’s, I tried twice just in case. In the deafening silence, unreality raged on.

Someone had to be told I was leaving my kids at home alone in the middle of the night; that my sister was dying and I was driving through a blizzard to say goodbye. Someone had to pray for her, for me, for all of us. I finished nursing Felicity and, saying a prayer that she would ease back into restful sleep, I stood up with her and put her pacifier in her mouth. I watched with relief as her little hand reached up to cup the side of her face, her telltale sign that she was eager to sleep, and she leaned away from me towards her crib. I laid her down and she re-scrunched her body, bum in the air, hand still cupping her face, pacifier bobbing softly, eyes closed. “I love you.” I mouthed and tip-toed away, closing the nursery door silently behind me. Walking back down the hall, I texted my women’s group.

Miraculously I got a response! I would learn later that two of them were as shocked as I was that they were unusually awake at that early hour of the morning. It was a tremendous relief to know that not only were they praying for Heidi, but for all of us as I drove off into the night.Those women, and additional members of my group in the next hour, were instruments of great grace as the Holy Spirit used them as the first to set in motion prayers and help that would sustain us. But in that moment of first contact, their awareness of the situation offered a grasp on reality that I so desperately needed.