Sleepover At Emma’s (pt. 1)

Apr 27

My typewriter case still holds the business card to the funeral home, along with a notebook I haven’t written in since your service planning…….

I’ve started this a few times, maybe today is the day

Here we go.

It was Sunday April 25, 2021 and I was in my live Zoom class when I just had this overwhelming feeling of confusing panic, I got up and walked out of class and out of my home. I didn’t know where I was going or what was wrong, I didn’t even tell anyone goodbye and they didn’t notice I’d left. I ended up at a nail place where I sat in a fog for a couple hours then drove around before heading back home.

Later that day I see a post about Emma being down again sick, more so or sick still. But I wouldn’t make a connection my being off that day was anyway related.

I woke up Monday still feeling heavy. I sent a text message to Mickayla to check in how she was doing and get an update on Emma.

This is when Mickayla would tell me that she was watching Bemma like a hawk, praying her heart out but that it was looking like the home stretch.

But what did this really mean?

Emma gets sick. She gets bad sick. We start to believe it’s time to say goodbye, then the little stinker pot rebounds and is better than ever.

Tuesday April 27, 2021 I asked how is Mickayla.

My best friend sent me a selfie that day, one like I’ve never seen before and one I’ll never forget. I’ve seen worry on my friends heart for years now. I held her so many days during Emma’s exploratory period when she coded multiple times and faster than the answers were coming.

This was vulnerable like I hadn’t seen, simultaneously cozy because my best friend and her baby girl were cuddled up heart to heart preparing for something we’d narrowly avoided for a now 9 years. She said “I put my armor on today”.

I can look back and see my denial as the reality fought to emerge. It was those pictures Tuesday, when I finally got Josh to look at the pictures she had sent, he said you need to go.

In true fashion I was like naaaaah, not yet.

I know exactly where and how I was standing in our bedroom.

It struck me like a rhinoceros hit to the gut.

I felt myself start to fold over I started to cry, I started to scream.

But instead, I went to do the laundry.

I couldn’t break yet, I knew I needed to show up.

The next morning April 28, 2021, I packed light, still thinking I would get there and she’d turn this cart around again. I looked at my clothes and immediately saw funeral options, but I said no, I don’t need those. I can lie to myself like that sometimes.

My packing did however included grabbing all my son’s old super hero capes we had in the donation pile, she said she had armored up and to me that meant I needed to show up with more.

All my heart was screaming was we started this together, let’s see it through- let’s see her home, together.

I dug my Team Emma shirts out of their safe keeping so I could wear one and headed out.

That was one of the craziest get to Emma drives to date, I didn’t tell them I was coming, I just kept checking with her through the day as I would from home.

She texted me that go rest hight on that mountain was playing like a soundtrack in her head, I told her Joanne was playing in mine. She’d never heard it and by time I said maybe don’t listen, shit. She already had started. We talked about how the days and nights were just like in the beginning again, but hey I was riding that denial train into the ground even though on the surface I was still realizing the time was here.

I did have to stop to see my Andrew first, he had just lost one of his best friends and I think I knew once I got to Emma’s I wouldn’t get the chance to hug his heart before those services.

It was dark by time I made the final drive, across the bridge, up the winding hill and passed the water tower.

I was turning myself to on, checking in one more time with my mom on the phone, I had a song that kept playing in my head so I shared the lyrics with mom

Fall on me

With open arms

Fall on me

From where you are

Fall on me

With all your light

I believed in these words as this call to God, for Jesus to wrap Emma in all his light.

But let me tell you, even I wasn’t prepared for how that would truly show up.

I flew up that gravel drive, glad to see lights still on as it was now about ten o’clock at night and I worried they’d already be in bed.

Kory was sitting in the garage, I was shaking so much I was almost still.

As I got out of my truck, Lil came to investigate and I hear Kory from the garage telling her to get me, she growled but we’re friends… jerk!

I put on my Superman cape, walked through the garage, and opened the door to the kitchen knowing once I did, I couldn’t close it.

My best friend in all her exhaustion stood there, talking to Nurse Jen who was on for the night.

As she glanced she recognized someone walking through the door, but it took a moment to register it was my dumb ass showing up at 10 PM!

It felt like she just fell into my arms.

The last time we embraced like that, was the first day Emma stopped breathing at 6 weeks old and I’d rushed into the PICU at St. John’s Hospital tossing my bags to the side and grabbing her like all our lives depended on it.

That time it was to save her life on Earth-

This time it was save her life by helping her go peacefully home with Jesus.

In one of many conversations after that week, I’d be told by Mickayla that she had been praying, begging and pleading with God to show her when it’s time.

She couldn’t be the one to make this decision, how could she decide to let go, it could only be a decision by God.

Then there I was, showing up in her kitchen at 10:15 at night, having driven up from Tennessee. She believed it wasn’t me speaking we started this together, we see it through together.

She knew it was God, speaking through me in answer to her prayers and it was all as it was supposed to be.

His plan.

I’m not sure if Mickayla will ever know the importance of that detail in Emma’s story for me. I have to remind myself often, so that when the darkness comes, I can help and remind it to go.

Those words were on my heart the whole way up, I didn’t need to question what to say when I arrived, but for some reason I felt it on my heart these specific words and I trusted them and I said them.

We were all tired and ready for bed. That night, I changed in front of Night Nurse Jen (a moment she may never forget) and camped out on the couch to listen and watch.

Much like we had done just 9 years ago in the hospital PICU. Those nurses have their own scaring memories of Aunt Sami encounters, you’re welcome.

To be continued…

Take good care and travel safe,

Sami