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Spring Cleaning
Working on the kids room and it is so cute. Well, cute if you’re 2 & 4. 🙂 I hope they like it. In the middle of going through old boxes, I found a box of old bills from when Codey was in the hospital. Wow! They start in 1987. You should see the bill printed for 4/30/87 to 1/13/88. I don’t even want to know how much paper was wasted printing off his bills. I decided to shred them. I’m not even sure why I have them still. In the midst of all the bills was a letter from Methodist about me not paying my bill. The boys were covered the minute they were born, but because they were 3 months early my delivery wasn’t covered. 1 more month and it all would have been covered, but because I was early Life flight and the delivery weren’t covered. I remember getting the letter because I cried so hard and then I just sat on the floor and laughed. It was for $4,500 & they told me they had given me ample time to pay for it because they had waited 4 months. There was also a letter stating that we couldn’t hold the bill paying $5 a month. How hilarious is that? How long would that have taken to pay off at $5/month. They told us we could apply for financial aid if we thought we qualified. We had both quit our jobs and we were living in the Ronald McDonald house trying to figure out what to do with our lives. Needless, to say with no income, we qualified for help. I thank God for insurance and for financial aid.
So many memories came flooding back as I was going through his bills. Having to leave Codey, who was so sick, and drive Kyle to the funeral home. We couldn’t afford for them to come pick him up so we drove him up to Fort Dodge. My mom & Linda with me, sitting there pathetically, holding the shell of my little boy – wishing I could do anything to change it. The chaplain told me that I should take him and that I wouldn’t regret it and she was right. I remember having to hand him over to the funeral home director. Having to pick out a little, white casket. I was so afraid Codey would die while we were gone. That was such a hard decision – do you stay with your son who is so ill and might die or do you drive 90 minutes away and bury your son? I don’t know why I’m writing about it. Maybe because the memory is so fresh and I don’t think I’ve ever put these words in writing. I journal for the kids, but I don’t often do it for myself. I don’t remember much about the funeral, except Dan. I remember him walking to the back of the hearse and picking up the casket and carrying it to the gravesite. Dan had never been to a funeral before and had never heard of pall bearers. I carried Kyle to the funeral home and Dan carried him to the grave. I suppose it was fitting.
Linda recently found a typed up paper of what Dan read at the funeral. I remember thinking how brave he was standing there and talking about Kyle. I won’t type the whole thing because it’s pretty long and it just restates what was going on with the boys and me. I had gotten pretty sick after the delivery and he had all 3 of us to worry about. Here’s what he said…The Lord has a plan for each of our lives. These plans all come together to form one big overall plan. These plans are all interrelated and interconnected so that a change in one results in a change in all. As short as little Kyle’s life was, he was alive for a reason; actually, for very many reasons. He was here to show us not to give up no matter how bad things are or how many things we have going against us. He was here to show us how much love we have to give. He gave my life a purpose and when his little brother is old enough to understand it will give purpose and meaning to his life too. His death showed us not to waste a moment of life, but to cherish it for the precious thing it is. It will affect everyone in some way, but there’s one thing I want to make clear. He was here to make our lives better not worse. If you let his death affect you in a negative way, then his life will have been wasted. The Lord is watching over him now, and when the Lord call us home we will have our baby boy there to greet us. His life can be best summed up by Job 1:21 and said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb and naked shall I return thither; the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
