Short Stories

Blessed Be Your Name

To try and explain the love I have for my daughter would be like explaining the color blue to a person who was born blind. To even begin to express how much she means to me would be as impossible as numbering each grain of sand. Her big, round, curious green eyes spoke the words she had not yet learned and her fair, flawless complexion and chubby pink cheeks display God’s love in the clearest of ways.

I hear her. I hear her cooing in the next room and I know she has woken up from her nap. I imagine that she is lying in her crib telling herself a story or scheduling aloud her plans for the day. As I open the door to her room, the soft cooing quiets and she turns her head towards me. I smile and she smiles back. This is the first time she has genuinely returned a smile and I feel my heart melt down into my stomach. I’m watching her now. I’m watching her as she lays on her belly and lifts her head to smile at my husband, Joshua. He is on his stomach too, following Jordan’s bald head as it bobs up and down, grinning ear to ear. He loves her too. He loves her more than he ever could me, and that is the best feeling in the world. I never thought I could share my husband with another girl, but after Jordan arrived I wanted nothing more than to give her to him wholeheartedly. She is all dressed up today. It’s a big day for her, for all of us.

Now, I’m playing with her. I’m on the couch at my mother’s and Jordan is sitting next to me, held up with colorful throw pillows. Though old enough, she still does not have the strength to sit up on her own quite yet. She is laughing with me as we play peek-a-boo and I blow raspberries on her neck. The whole family is here, it’s a celebration. My dad comes over and plucks Jordan up from the couch. She smiles at Grandpa and he pulls her close to him.

I look on now in pure amazement. I’m watching my daughter take her first steps. Tears of sheer joy are spilling down my cheeks and I know that this is one of the many moments I will never forget. Jordan will take millions and millions of steps from this point on, but these are the first. More important than any continental discovery or moon landing, I am witnessing my daughter take the first tiny steps of her life, fall down, and take them all over again. This is not the first time I’ve seen such determination in this girl’s eyes, but it is the clearest. Joshua is on his knees across the room clapping and gesturing for Jordan to come to him and I see tears in his eyes too. A moment we thought we would never be able to see, and it is finally here.

We worked so hard for this. Joshua and I have spent nearly every waking second of Jordan’s life in training for the day she would speak and it is here. “Daddy.” Clear as day, too! Well, I always knew she was Daddy’s girl and this confirmed it. Joshua is bursting with pride in his precious little daughter who chose, above all the other words in the world, his name to be the first word she’d ever speak. I can tell Jordan is confused by the excitement she’s caused, but savors it and begins to repeat, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” each time getting louder and louder. Joshua and I chuckle and he slips his fingers between mine and squeezes three times. I turn, look at him and reply, “I love you, too.”

I eject the tapes from the VCR and place them back in the tattered cardboard box and head into Jordan’s bedroom. I pick up the children’s bible I read to her every night and return it to the bookshelf. Sitting in the rocking chair I had bought when I’d discovered I was pregnant only three years ago, I close my eyes and let the memories come rushing over me. I remember when we brought her home from the hospital for the first time. We were such happy parents. I remember when we found out she was sick and the doctors, every single specialist, said that there was nothing we could do to make her better. I remember when the feeling of helplessness would fade as Jordan burped, cooed and smiled. I remember when Joshua and I made a promise to ourselves and to God that we would do all we could to make sure that Jordan had the best life possible. I remember when she had to go back to the hospital and how all the nurses loved her bubbly personality and snuck her extra cookies. I remember how at her funeral I laughed more than I cried.

I remember as I looked down at my precious, darling, beautiful baby girl. Her small frame surrounded by her favorite toys and pictures of the happiest days from her short life. I knew in my heart that this day would come. I knew that one day the disease would be too much for her little body to fight. I knew that one day I would have to give my daughter back to God and thank Him for letting me have for the time that He did. What I did not know was the pain I would feel. What I did not know was how there was no amount of preparation that would even slightly lessen the pressure on my chest. I had everyone wear yellow that day. No black. Jordan was finally going home and this was a day to celebrate that. I remember every last detail of my daughter’s life.

There is a worship song that comforts me more than anything during the most difficult times. It says, “Blessed be Your name on the road marked with suffering, though there’s pain in the offering, blessed be Your name. You give and take away. My heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be Your name.” I am so blessed to have known Jordan. God allowed her to be a part of my life and teach me lessons no one else could. God gave me an angel to take care of for one year, seven months and eleven days and for that I will do my best to bless His name forever.

I will never say that I loved her or tell someone how much she meant to me. Jordan is still my daughter and nothing will ever change that, not even her death. I still talk to her every day in my prayers and anticipate the day I’ll be able to hold her close and hear her say “Daddy” all over again.