Part III: Nora's Death

 

In today’s guest post, Molly Volker shares Part III of Nora’s life — and death. You may wish to read Part I where she describes her experience of finding out that her child, not yet born, would have severe health problems,  and Part II, where she describes her life with Nora.
If death can be beautiful, Nora’s was. She had suffered a pulmonary hypertensive spell a few weeks after her second major open heart surgery and slowly declined over a period of three days. As a parent, you never can imagine your child actually dying. We were fighting so hard to keep her here with us; we weren’t sure if or how to let her go. She had been in a medically induced coma for those 3 days without much change other than a very small, slow decline.  No one would ever say to us that she was dying, but we knew in our hearts.
At one point something particularly difficult was going on with her. Basically her little body was shutting down and I felt like maybe she had had enough. But since she was in a medically induced coma, I didn’t know for sure. She couldn’t tell me. So we stayed by her bed day and night and on the third day when everyone was there with us, she woke up. For the first time in a long time, she opened her eyes and looked at us. I used this opportunity to ask her what to do. Aaron and I were with her in bed and I asked, “Nora, this is a lot for you, baby girl. I will fight with you for forever if that is what you want, but if it is too hard, I understand. Do you want to stay here?” She looked at each of us in the eyes and shook her head no. I took a deep breath and said “Ok, baby.” But I didn’t want to have to turn off any machines, so I told her that. I said, “I don’t know what to do. Show me.” Meantime Aaron noticed her heart rate dropping slowly, so he grabbed Evie and brought her into the bed with us. I looked up and saw the monitor numbers dropping down and said, “Ok baby, go to Him. Go. God and the angels will take care of you until I can come later. You will be ok. We will be together again soon.” And she left us. As I looked up, I saw thinly through to another dimension: I caught a glimpse of where she went and it gave me great peace. At the same time my soul groaned deep like it did when she was born. I was crying out into the deep. The agony of losing a child is like no other. There are no words to describe the pain.
After she passed the doctor came in and “disconnected” her body from all the wires and tubes that had kept her alive all this time. I held her in my arms and carried her freely across the room with no wires or tubes for the first time. I sat down to rock with her and I looked up at the blank wall in front of me and I saw the shadow of her spirit leaping up spinning for joy. I knew she was free. Every day I thank the universe for those last precious reassurances.
The hardest part was leaving the hospital. After all that work, all that pain, and all that struggle, it simply felt like we had nothing to show for it. Leaving without her was so lonely and surreal. A beautiful couple who had lost their son just a year before knew how painful that time was for them so they came and went out to dinner with us.  I still can’t imagine how hard it must have been for them to come back and support us in that way reopening some of their own pain. But to share it with each other was sacred. We were not alone and that made our burden lighter.
In the following day, months, and years  people continued to show up and carry us through our grief. My godfather let us stay in his beach home in Florida for a week following the funeral and my family paid for us to go to Disney for a few days. While we were away, women friends of mine raised money to have our living room redone. One of Nora’s nurses and our babysitter came in a cleared out Nora’s things. Then my friends cleaned the carpet, painted the walls, bought new furniture and décor and made our home into a transformed place of peace. To this day people say our living room has a peaceful aura. That’s because Nora lived there and those friends loved us through the worst time in our lives, all in that space. I could not have come home to an empty crib and blank white walls like it had been. I would not have been able to function. Those friends saved us from so much extra pain.
For the next few months we trudged heavily through our life. We hardly knew what to do after she was gone. Our life had gone from round-the-clock nurses, therapy, doctor appointments, and rhythmic sounds of machines to feeling empty, and dark, and barren.  Slowly we began to reinvest in each other. The three of us took time to reconnect and grow back together. But really we felt like we were at the bottom of a dark and cold, lonely place. That’s grief. It’s so deep, and so hard, and so lonely. But even there in the darkness and the loneliness there was an ember of hope.
This may sound strange and we don’t know how to explain these things, only that they happen and they didn’t happen before we had Nora. Things like for months shortly after she went home to the Big Love, the sky and clouds seemed brighter and more vibrant and more alive. The grass was greener and trees seemed more alive. Both Aaron and I experienced it. We don’t know how or why, but it was comforting. Low flying bald eagles passing close by us on days of great emotional need or days like her birthday, were and continue to be a regular occurrence. Once it happened in a snow storm. A huge bald eagle came down and flew 15 feet above our windshield in the direction we were driving as if to lead the way. Dragonflies surround us too at beautiful moments, like this summer at Lake Itasca (headwaters of the Mississippi). Just as I stepped in to cross the river, one landed on my shoulder and flew away once I had crossed over safely. Dragonflies’ process of metamorphosis echos beautifully our experience of both Nora’s transformation and our own process of transformation. For she surely transformed from a being we could see to a being that is more elusive but ever present. It’s a beautiful mystery but we now experience the mostly hidden kingdom of heaven daily, because we keep our hearts open to her and to the fullness of life around us. That’s what hope is, keeping your heart open to the magic and beauty of life because you believe it will come out alright in the end.