"He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm,
and carry them close to his heart, and shall gently lead those that are with young." Isaiah 40:11

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Saying Good-bye to the Flames House

Tomorrow afternoon (2:30pm) we go back to the Flames House for a Good-bye Tea with the Staff.  Following that, we are going to meet one last time with Rachel's cardiologist to talk about her last day - ask some questions about that, and to wrap things up where her care was concerned.  We are going to walk through the building where we spend so much time.  The place where Rachel had her first spell and many more afterwards.  The place where we made friendships with so many beautiful people, because of Rachel.  The basinet where she slept. Everything about this place screams Rachel to us.  The kids are very disappointed that they can't stay the night but they are happy about this visit. I think this is going to be a tough thing for Dave and I to do.  But necessary.  I want to be able to say good-bye, and to hug the people who cared for us so well these past few years. 

Something we are looking forward to these days, is our Germany trip! For awhile (and maybe still now), I have both dreaded leaving our house and wanted to do this at the same time.  But now I am starting to get excited.  It's hard to explain I guess.  We are leaving at the end of September. Dave's sister and brother in law live in Berlin and they have generously offered to pay our plane tickets. We plan to spend some time with them and hope to go out of country a bit too.  It will be really great to see where they live!!! Dave is officially on Sabatical starting today (Tuesday).  It will be so good to be able to do more things as a family.  We have already been doing things that we haven't done once in our six years in this city too...and that feels strange, beautiful and painful all at once. 

Some of you have asked if I am sleeping better.  I am sleeping A LOT now. (although having tons of bizzare dreams too, usually about babies) I wish I could dream about Rachel but it's mostly just crazy stuff. Just recently I started thinking that if I didn't have to take care of two very active kids, I might just stay in bed all day.  Maybe it's the way my body is dealing with the stress of the last few years.  Maybe the desire for escape.  But anyway - we are trying to plan ahead so that we always have things to look forward to, things that we need to do.  Thanks for asking:)

2 comments:

Brenda Funk said...

I suspect your body, mind and spirit, have a lot of catching up to do. It was quite the year -- don't think you will realize the toll it took till years later, when you look back. Because you do it one day at a time.

Kathy said...

Praying for your trip to Germany will be a fruitful experience. And from then until now, praying that you can continue to sleep and maybe start to dream of Rachel.