Tears

 After telling you about Byron's dog dish drinking episode...

I better fess up and let you know that on my watch today (I was vacuuming),

Kean fell down the stairs.  Hard.

He does the stairs all the time... but must be off today, perhaps from the Chemo.

He has two little bruises on his face to match the bruise on his back from the Spinal.

Ug.

He was supposed to have Speech yesterday but for obvious reasons we moved it to today.

Meagan was playing with his puppets, teaching him to "shhhh the baby"...

 and cover him up to go "night, night".

 I guess it was just too tempting.

 Kean seemed very tired this morning and had a few vomiting episodes

but other than that, he was his happy self.

Danielle Bingham came over this afternoon to watch Kean so I could go

pay my respects to little Bella's family.

For such a short life and tiny thing, she sure touched many lives.

Isn't she the most beautiful child?

Her mother held a viewing for several hours leading up to the funeral.

When I arrived, it was just Bella's mom, Vicki, her father and two nurses from

the hospital that I knew well.

We sat and watched a video of Bella that one of the hospital nurse assistants put together.

There were also huge posters full of photographs and a touching scrapbook with pages

put together by each of the nurses and nurse assistants who took care of Bella.

Bella was diagnosed with A.L.L. (the same kind of Leukemia Kean has) when she was exactly six

months old.  She died at 22 months and spent nearly every single day in between at St. Luke's.

When Kean was first admitted and once he got healthy enough, we used to take wagon rides around

the nurses station.  Remember that?

Well, oftentimes, Bella would be in an exer-saucer parked right at the glass door inside her room watching

us go by.  She was on isolation and couldn't come out.  But each of the probably 40 times we

passed her room, she would stop crying and she and Kean would wave at each other and blow kisses.

We fell in love with the little girl behind the glass and have followed her treatment

and prayed for her from our hospital room and then from our home.

I don't know how the nurses and doctors do their jobs.  How can you not get

attached to these kiddos... and with one out of every five (more than that when you are dealing with Down's)...

passing away...  how do they keep going?
I know nurses from other areas were covering this evening, so most of the Pediatric Oncology nurses
could come to the funeral home.  I feel for them.  They loved that little girl like their own.

Do you remember Kendra?

She was the 13 year old who had a horrific reaction to the Chemo and lost her

ability to speak and walk for a few weeks.

She is the one who connected with Kean and came to Reese's birthday party.

Anyway, she and her family were at the funeral today. 

As I left, Kendra's mom came outside and we both just cried.

We'll never be able to answer why we have been so blessed so far to keep our babies with us.

At least sweet Bella is out of pain and will be reunited with her family someday.