Death Comes to the Chicken Hilton

Jerry holds hen just killed by hawk

It had to happen sooner or later.

I'd just walked out of the barn to go get my camera in the car, and saw a large hawk standing on the ground just the other side of one of the garden beds.  A blizzard of tiny feathers were streaming away from his feet, caught up on the brisk southern breeze.

Jerry was over by the Chicken Hilton.

"Hawk!" I yelled, and ran toward the predator, which quickly took to the air and settled on a nearby bush. 

The audacity of that bird!  I thought. 

He'd struck not 20 feet from where Jerry was working.

Not only that, he showed no signs of leaving his kill, either.  I finally ran after him and shooed him further away, but I know where he lives--over in Sara's Garden--and I know he'll soon be back.

I hoped against hope that maybe the large buff hen I saw lying on the ground was just stunned, but no such luck.  Hawks probably don't make mistakes like that too often.

I picked her up. She was so warm.  Her pretty head drooped loosely, the neck neatly snapped.  If only I'd come out of the barn 30 seconds before!

I walked over to the Hilton, put the hen on the back of Jerry's cart, and helped him coop up the rest of the chickens.  They were rattled and skittish, and it took a while to get them in.

Guess we'll have to have a chicken shepherd from now on when we let them out to roam.  A new job description to write!

It's a little death, I guess, but Jerry and I were talking just yesterday about how much sheer fun the chickens are, what joy they bring, and how much joy they seem to get from their simple little lives.

Not to mention the eggs.

Well, if He knows when the sparrows fall, He knows when the chickens fall, too.  He cares about the hawk no less, and in the end we shall all be delivered into a mightier hand.

Epiphany 2010

I wasn't ready for Epiphany to come so soon!  Usually we have ten to 12 days to bask in the light of the Christmas tree, but today in church we celebrated Epiphany.

Fr. Larry talked about how pervasive the images of Epiphany are in our culture--the Kings, the camels, the star, the Holy Family, the King Herod, the gifts, and of course the precious Babe lying in the manger.  Everybody recognizes them, even if they aren't sure what they all mean.

Fr. Larry said that one thing they mean is this: Each of us carries wisdom, a star that we're following, at least a touch of King Herod, and--hopefully--love, within us.  Each of us has gifts to give.  We struggle between what we believe is the security of what we have and accepting the invitation of the One who came into the world with nothing to offer but Himself.

After church, I came home and spent a couple of hours cleaning my car inside and out, mostly to have an excuse to spend the beautiful afternoon outside.  As I was vacuuming away, Fr. Greg arrived with Jim, returning after the holidays. 

After Fr. Greg  got Jim settled into Timothy House and left I called and asked Jim if he wanted to walk down and see if the hens had laid any eggs today.  He did.  We stopped by Barnabas House to drop off a gift from Jim to the guys there, said hi to Mike sitting on the porch of Gabriel House, and walked mostly in silence to the Chicken Hilton.

We found a dozen eggs of different sizes and hues, and then went to the garden to check out the broccoli and cabbages.  I was afraid the recent freezes had damaged the cabbages, but they were fine, so I cut a few small ones for dinner tonight.

On the way back to the Village, I asked Jim if he wanted to eat with Barnabas House tonight or have Jerry's famous fried chicken and potato salad with us.  A little smile crossed his face and he said softly, "Fried chicken with you and Jerry."

That said, we settled on a time and walked to Timothy House.  After I left Jim I saw Kristen doing her walk around the Village Road.  She had her headphones on and was singing away as she walked.  Above us the sky was deep blue and criss-crossed with contrails.

There was no wind, not even a breeze, and the late afternoon light was startlingly clear. 

"Everything is so calm and bright," I thought to myself, and then laughed at my choice of words. 

Anita came by just as I reached Benedict House and swung into the drive.  She confessed that the day had been hard for her.  Anita just moved into Teresa House, leaving her daughter Alaina at Martha House. 

"This is the first Sunday of her life that I haven't taken care of every little detail of her getting ready for church," Anita said.  "I held out as long as I could and then I just had to call Naomi and check on how things were going."

Kristen, Kelly, Ashley, Alaina & Rebekah

When Kelly moved to Martha House five years ago, I felt her absence so strongly it was almost a presence in itself.  The scared old king inside me so wanted things to stay the same, to have her there by me, to get those daily hugs, those dozen "I love yous."

Back then I needed to remind myself that the vision that was given to us of the Ranch came from a wiser place than that, and it was time to let my baby go and spread her wings a bit.  I feel for my friend.  I know how much faith and courage it takes.

Anita, Julia, Terrie, Natalie, & Crystal

It's been a lovely day, unhurried and unharried, finding glory in the ordinary.  A gift indeed.

Wise Men image from squidoo.com

Death Comes for Grandpa

I received an email a few days ago from the mom of one of our Ranchers. She wanted us to know that her son's grandfather had unexpectedly died the night before.  She needed help putting together a plan so that her son would have support close at hand when she broke the news to him that night.

We've noticed over the years that for many, if not most, of our Ranchers the insult of death seems to remain forever fresh in their minds and hearts. They will suddenly burst out crying for a grandparent who died many years ago, the grief as raw as the day it happened.

We wonder: What's going on? Is it really the memory of Opa? Is Opa's death substituting for a current anguish that can't be named? Or could it be--in part at least--a ploy to garner a little TLC at the end of a long and tiring day?

I believe the grief really is attached to the loss, and for them the memory brings back that jolt we all feel when someone close dies--that gut-wrenching sense of loss, anger, and helplessness.

On the other hand, those of us without disabilities tend to live our lives compartmentalized neatly into past, present, and future.

I think of my mother, who died in '89, with no particular sadness. I've sorted out my feelings and packed away my memories. For me she will forever exist between the parameters of 1917 and 1989. For good or for ill, it's over.

But many of our residents, particularly those with Down syndrome, live life rooted firmly in the here and now, with a vulnerability hard for us even to imagine. They go through life with their hearts unguarded, gloriously open to the moment, but then boom! Out the sad memory pops, and the heart breaks anew.

This mom was wise to cushion the blow as best she could.

I told her I would let all appropriate staff, including Calvin, her son’s RA, know what was happening. Calvin would be near when she called that evening with the news, and his best buddy would be there, too.

At 5:30 the call was made. She said her son was initially very upset and crying but as they spoke he calmed down. After he hung up his housemates comforted him.

After supper her son asked Calvin if he could go over to Martha House and ask Anita and the ladies to pray with him for Grandpa Vic. Calvin said sure, so off he went with one of his house buddies. (The Martha House ladies are famously gifted in prayer.)

After visiting Martha House, he returned home, went about his routine, and went to bed.  The next day he was eager to share the news with me.  We talked a bit more about losing loved ones and it was clear he would need time to continue processing what had happened, but that he was well begun and feeling pretty secure in the world that remained.

It all made me think about the sad rainy night my mother died. I was all alone at the nursing home with her. Jerry was home with little Kelly.

There was nothing more to be done. Mom was scared and I was scared.  We didn't have a playbook for what was happening to us.

We sure could have used a Martha House that night.

Coming Home

Jerry and I went on a cruise in mid-November.  We had a good time, but were stunned and heartbroken by the news of our colleague Jim's death.  I knew this would hit the Ranchers like a ton of bricks and longed to be with them at such a sad time.  However, Phil assured me I could trust our staff, and what's more, I could trust the Ranchers to see one another through it. He said that in effect, Jerry and I were there because of the community we had helped create.

And so it was.  As things turned out, I was the one sobbing all alone at an internet terminal on a huge ship in the middle of the ocean.  Fellow passengers brought me tissues and someone patted my shoulder warmly in passing, which was much appreciated, but how I could have used some of those Rancher hugs at a time like that.

We are having our own service Tuesday afternoon to honor this good, much-loved man.  Rebekah's dad Fr. John Williams will lead the service.

And needless to say we were quickly swept back up into Ranch life.  Two new calves were born on Monday and are doing fine.  Our little Dude, born three weeks too early and still being bottle fed in the barn, got sick and Jerry, Crystal and I loaded him into an old delivery van and drove him to Taylor to see Dr. Graef.

The Dude felt awful, and I thought it was his ear.  My grandmother always told us kids when we were trying hard to look pitiful, "You look like a dying calf in a hail storm!"  I finally got the picture, too, as the Dude lay sprawled over Crystal and me, twisting his neck around to gaze at us with his huge, inky-black eyes.

Shortly before reaching Taylor, he scrambled up to his feet and promptly peed all over me.  Oh well, just another adventure along the road...

Actually, it was a good sign, or so said the doc.

After the Dude was shot up with painkillers and antibiotics (indeed it was an ear infection), we headed home, where he downed a half gallon of milk and skipped about feeling no pain, at least for a while.

Though bigger than his little cousins, he is at about the same stage of development.  We will put him out with them in a few more weeks, though we'll need to continue to bottle feed for another few months.

Then it was Tuesday, and we had our community Thanksgiving.  It was fun (and delicious), and the Ranchers began heading for home right away.

On Thanksgiving Day, the weather was warm and humid.  About 1:00 PM I stood in front of the house with Jerry and was complaining about the sticky weather when woosh! Out of the north came a mighty wind, cold and dry, blasting the oak leaves off the trees and picking up the fallen leaves from the ground, swooping them up high in the sky 30 or 40 feet, spiraling all around us. The thermometer dived from 80 to 45 over the next few hours.

Julia, Terry, and Natalie were still at home with Sandy on Thanksgiving Day, and of course Kelly is with Jerry and me, so we all had a fine time at Benedict House.  I put on the full feast of turkey, dressing, gravy, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans, Challah bread, chocolate pie, pumpkin pie, whipped cream, cranberry sauce.  Jerry made the deep-dish enchilada, the stuffed celery, and the deviled eggs.

Weight Watchers, where art thou?

Anyway, we don't have to cook for a while.  After dinner we settled in to watch the Aggies and the Longhorns go at it.  Jerry grumped off to be when it was clear the Ags would win, but Kelly and I stayed til the satisfying end.

I'd have been an Aggie myself, but I was gender-challenged for that particular assignment in those ancient times.  I plan to ask Gov. Perry to do something about this situation.

Today the Ranchers are trickling back in.  Kelly will soon load up her bike and head up to Martha House.  In the weeks ahead we'll be packing poinsettias like crazy, going on deliveries, getting into the Christmas spirit.

Life Its Own Self

Once many years ago, when Kelly was a toddler, I was in conversation with a man from San Antonio, which has nothing to do with anything except that's the only thing I remember about him, aside from what I here relate.

When he learned my daughter had Down syndrome, he spoke of a family friend and his wife who'd had a baby with the condition.  Then he said, "Fortunately, the child died young."

Time froze.  My ears stopped hearing. 

My eyes were on Kelly as she sat on the carpet playing with a beam of late afternoon light that slanted through the window.

Hand in,
hand out.

Bright,
dark. 

Fingers open,

fingers closed.

I recall nothing more of the man's visit, not who he was nor why he was in my living room, what I said, or how long he stayed.  The curtain closes on that memory in deafened silence, with me staring at Kelly's hand:

Hand in, hand out.  Bright, dark.  Fingers open, fingers closed. 

Many years later, Jerry and I attended the funeral of a much-loved young woman who was among the first to come to Down Home Ranch.  She didn't have Down syndrome.  She seemed healthy as a horse.

Yet, unaccountably, one morning she died in bed shortly before dawn, and nobody ever knew why.  She was 30 years old.

At the funeral her dad was clearly heartbroken, but told us,  "My one consolation is that she went before me.  You know, that was my prayer for her, that she would always have me to look out for her and take care of her, so she'd have to go before me.  And my prayer was answered."

Jerry and I understood what he meant (after all, Down Home Ranch is our attempt to keep on taking care of Kelly after we're gone and we'd be lying if we said it wasn't true) but our hearts were breaking for us.  We loved this woman.  She was one of a kind--loud, funny, opinionated--a true character, and we grieved the loss of her.  There was no consolation for us in her death.

But that's the terrible path we walk--those of us with children who need us forever. 

Today Kelly flew off to Kansas with her boyfriend Sterling to visit her oldest sister Carolyn.  They are quite the accomplished travelers, given a packing list and enough numbers programmed into their cell phones.  Just to be on the safe side, since this is the first flight they've taken with a plane change on the way, we sent  Casey, our Case Manager, as far as Dallas to conduct an on-site training in gate-changing in hopes that next time they'll be able to navigate it by themselves.

In Kansas they will stay up too late, and laugh and giggle most of the night, and Sterling will exchange mock insults and barbs with (future) brother-in-law Bryan, who calls him "Sterling-darling" to annoy him.  They'll go swimming, to a movie, eat at Five Guys, and help a little with the farm chores (but probably not much).

In a hundred years, we'll all be gone.

Kelly is enchanted by bubbles

But Lord, while we're here, lead us in the dance.

Sara's Garden: A Father's Love

A new Program Director came in a few months ago, name of Phil.  Walking around the Ranch, Phil discovered an out-of-the-way garden, neglected and umkempt, much like the garden in the well known book The Secret Garden.

He asked me about it and I told him, shamefaced, the story of Sara's Garden--that it's a memorial garden planted by a father in tribute to his baby daughter.

Phil talked to Brian, our grower, about assigning the Garden Team to bring the garden back to life.  Together they worked out a plan, and at least a few days a week over the past several weeks have been working diligently under the oversight of Lori, the Garden Team Leader.

I was talking to Marci, our Lead Teacher, about the garden and soon realized nobody really knew the stories behind it, least of all the Ranchers who were restoring it, so this afternoon I went over to talk to Andrew, Sterling, and Matt about the work they were doing.

We settled down in the Gazebo, and I began with the story of baby Sara, after whom the garden is named.

It was early 1992, and a doctor who'd treated Kelly early in her life called us up to ask if we would mind his passing our name and number on to a family he was working with.  Their baby girl had Down syndrome, like our Kelly does, and she was in the process of developing leukemia.  At that point baby Sara's dad John was staying home to care for her in semi-isolation, since she was vulnerable to illness and infection because of her compromised immune system.

We happily agreed to connect with the family, and John confessed he'd like to come out one day a week just to work hard and discharge anxiety over his little one's precarious health.

Soon John was coming out every Friday and attacking the brush, mesquite, and old barbed wire fences that abounded on the Ranch's acreage.  He and Jerry felled trees (terrifying to witness!) and John planted many interesting things--variegated corn and acres of sweet potatoes among other things.  The latter were so abundant that one day Jerry stood looking them over and said, "John, what in God's name will we do with all these sweet potatoes?"

Out of that came the Yam Bake, but that's another story for another time.

Baby Sara, who was then approaching two years of age, continued to progress into leukemia and soon the time came to begin chemotherapy.  John and Mary Jane both had to stay much closer to Sara during these times.  No more charging around the Ranch for John.  Days became consumed by hospitals and doctors, fear and hope for their tiny girl.

Sara did well through all the chemo, bouncing back each time.  Until the last one.

We got the call that things were looking very bad.  The family was gathering at the hospital.  We were honored to be counted among them.  I divided my time between the chapel and the bedside where the parents stood watch in the pediatric ICU.

A priest had been called, and he anointed the Sara with oil in the sacrament of healing.  After some hours the watch ended, and two exhausted young parents returned home, bearing the weight of a loss no mom or dad should ever have to bear.

A few days after the funeral John showed back up at the Ranch again.  He began to clear an area--not too far, but not too near, either--from the little mobile home that served as we used to refer to, laughingly, as the Horton Home and the World Headquarters of Down Home Ranch.

Day after day John ripped out saplings, trimmed branches, and dug flower beds like a man possessed.  He created a flower garden in the shape of a butterfly.  Friends turned out to help him and Mary Jane plant the garden and flower beds with a riot of native shrubs, flowers and plants. A St. Francis statue was set to watch over the garden, and angels hung from the trees.

A young oak was planted, and Sara's ashes interred where its roots would grow.  It was a beautiful day. 

John, Mary Jane, and Sara's older sister Bonnie set about putting their lives back together.  In time Mary Jane was able to conceive another child, and Daniel was born.  The heartache remained, but happy memories and family life carried them into the future.

Selena Mania!

In March I chanced to read an article in the Texas Monthly commemorating the 15th anniversary of  the death of Mexican-American singer Selena.  I did remember when she was killed, but had seen her at the time as a minor pop singer in whom mostly young people would be interested.

Needless to say, the article was heartbreaking, but more than that, it piqued my interest anew.

A few days later I took Sterling and Kelly to Wal-Mart, and chanced to pass by the rack featuring Spanish music.  There was a double album of Selena's hits and it wasn't expensive, so I bought it.

Wow!  I fell in love on the first song.  What a voice! What presence! What sureness! What musicianship!  I was hooked.  Soon Selena was booming on my car speakers wherever I went, and the joy of listening to her irrepresible renditions filled my days.

Kelly and Sterling liked it, too.  I told them about Selena and reminded them we had a movie about her in the library, but warned that it ended very sadly.

Kelly watched the movie that night, and asked me lots of questions the next day.  We've played the songs and talked a lot more about things I imagine a lot of people would really like to know: Why did that woman shoot Selena?  Is Selena in heaven now?  How old would she be now?  Is her husband still sad?

The answers I gave her?  "We'll never really know."  "I'm certain she is."  "38 years old."  "Yes, I'm sure he is, but he got married again, and guess what--he has a little boy with Down syndrome just like you!"

Then about two weeks ago I came out of my office and what do I hear but "...'Amor prohibido murmuran por las calles'..."  Selena!

"Who's playing Selena?" I ask.

"Me," says Natalie, "I love her."

Now all the Ranchers can talk about is Selena.  DVD sales are booming, Ranchers are clamoring for me to teach them her songs in Spanish.  We sing, we dance, we boogie to Selena.

Often the Ranchers want to talk about the unbelievable tragedy of her death and our hearts break anew.  How is it even possible that so much aliveness could be taken away? 

But I remind them that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will never overcome it.

And we best honor Selena by holding onto that, and by joyfully letting the gifts she left behind fill our lives.



Photo:  Selena, pictured in April 1994, for her Amor Prohibido Tour

Still Life

Waiting for the carpet cleaners to arrive, I was shuffling through boxes of photos and albums in our home office in Benedict House.

Naturally, I got distracted and soon was flipping through mementos of our former lives.

Dang! We were a pretty darned good-looking pair back in the day, despite eyeglasses the size of pie pans and clothing styles just recovering from the 70s.

Still, as Kelly always asks when she sees pictures of the younger me, “What happened?”

Well, life is what happened. We are old now, and—to quote the poet—covered with our lives.

But appearances are deceiving, as we know. We didn’t feel especially beautiful or handsome when those pictures were snapped, and we don’t feel especially old now that we are.

The reality of any stage of life is what’s going on inside, not what the camera catches. Shortly after those pictures were taken, Kelly was born and we learned that lesson big time.

Right after getting home from the hospital, our new friends Don and Jo Rettberg, parents of an eight-year-old boy with Down syndrome, advised us not to check out books on the subject from the library.

“They’re all depressing, and most of what they say isn’t even true,” said Jo.

But of course we checked the books out anyway, including one on “mental defects” that featured a young woman with Down syndrome, stripped naked, standing bewildered and alone under the harsh flash of the camera, glancing sideways down at the floor.

Welcome to the world, baby girl.

It could be that Down Home Ranch was conceived the moment we opened that book to that dreadful page.

Because Jerry and I had learned in the three short days of our baby’s new life that a diagnosis does not and never will describe a human being, and that the love burning in our hearts would be the true measure of Kelly’s life, and of ours.

That one photo kindled in us the fierce resolve to go anywhere and do anything to protect our girl and give her the life and the dignity she deserved.

And the young woman in the photo?

She has almost certainly passed on by now, but my heart still grieves for her.

How I wish I could let her know that we remember her, that we know how much more there was to her and to her life than that wretched photo, and how much she came to mean to us.

And that in part because of her, we built a place of beauty, and love, and dignity for those who followed.

Good Dog

“Lord, make me the person my dog thinks I am.”


Recently we got signed up on our vets’ web site. Dan and Sally have taken care of our horses, dogs, cats, goats, and pigs since the Ranch began. Suddenly there they all were, lined up on my computer. Many of them are gone by now, the cats mostly to coyotes, the dogs to various ends (including one to Dan and Sally), so I needed to delete their names. When I came to Dusty, I began to cry. Dusty died just before Christmas 2009. Following is his story.

He came to us in the Christmas season, and he left us in the Christmas season.

His name was Dusty, and he was a good dog.

We are devastated beyond understanding. It’s not that we didn’t know the time had come. He was blind, deaf, and covered with tumors under his shaggy, matted coat. He could barely make it the few inches over the doorstep to come into the house. But if he sensed your presence by touch or smell, he still managed a tail wag and a little shiver of delight.

On Christmas Eve of 1994 Jerry brought Dusty home as a surprise for Kelly, then ten. He excitedly called me to come out to the car to meet the newest member of our family. But as I reached out to pet him, he startled and snapped. Sadly, we made plans to take him back to the pound after Christmas.

We hid him in our bedroom, and he cowered under the night table. I sneaked him out to go to the bathroom after Kelly had gone to bed. He did his business and headed back to his hiding place.

Christmas morning the whole family arrived early. I’d taken Dusty out before they arrived and in all the confusion hadn’t thought of him since. Later on that morning, after the turkey was on and the mess of wrapping paper cleared away our three-year old granddaughter was put to bed for a nap. A short while later she emerged from the bedroom beaming. “Nana,” she exclaimed, “I found a puppy!” And there was Dusty, happy as anything, and ready to join our family, for better or for worse.

Now, 15 years later I knew the old boy didn’t have much time left, and expected that any day I’d return home to find him lying peacefully in a favorite spot in the yard. I wish it had happened that way.

Instead, one evening when I went to look for him to give him his supper he was nowhere to be found. I called and called, knowing it was futile because he couldn’t hear a thing. But he did that sometimes, wandered away investigating some interesting smell, only to return to his doghouse on the porch for the night.

Long before dawn I got up and went to the office for a few hours. The weather had changed, and the day dawned freezing cold and very windy. When I returned home, was horrified to see a dark shaggy shape lying still under the Carolina jasmine as the wind blew the branches aside. I ran over and fell to my knees.

As I feared, it was Dusty. I ran to get a blanket and transferred him onto it to bring him inside. I piled covers on him, my heart breaking to think he’d been lying only feet away from his beloved warm spot by the front door through all the long cold night.

He was clearly near death.

Hysterical, I called Jerry. “Our good boy is dying,” I wailed. He hurried home and together we sat beside our old friend, counting his slowing breaths.

Mid-morning I had to leave to meet a visitor and give her a tour of the Ranch. I arrived with eyes so swollen and face so red that I had to explain what was going on lest she think me either deformed or a madwoman. A bit later, as she was leaving, Jerry found me and said Dusty was gone.

We went to find Kelly, who was with her friends at the Learning Center, and broke the news. She wanted to see Dusty, so Jerry took her to the house. She cried and sat beside his now-still form, and leaned over and kissed him goodbye.

We buried him in the front yard, close to the house. Weeks later we still cry. We’ve lost a lot of dogs in our lives. But Dusty was special.

I have grieved as much over Dusty as over much-loved family members. He was a friend, and worthy of the name.

And we will miss him forever.

Hector and Ashley

A surprising joy of becoming the parents of a child with Down syndrome is meeting so many families you wouldn’t otherwise get to know.

With them you share joys and sorrows about which most of the world is happily unaware. You are on a journey together, and you learn to rely on and trust one another like soldiers in a war zone.

And as you witness other families’ struggles and victories, you are sometimes privileged to see the human spirit at its best, inspired by, made strong by, and led by love.

But on occasion, doing so is almost more than you can bear.

Jerry and I met Hector and Ashley when our Kelly was in primary school and their Cristina was a toddler. They were much younger than we, but we clicked right away and discovered many things in common.

Hector and Ashley met and married at A&M and bleed maroon. Cristina was their first child, followed swiftly by two more little girls.

When we started Down Home Ranch, Hector and Ashley were among our earliest and most ardent supporters. Ashley served on the Board of Directors and the whole family fell out—and still does—for every event, big or small.

When they discovered that Ashley was pregnant with their fourth child, we rejoiced with them.

Things proceeded happily along, until one day I received a phone call in my office from Ashley.

“Judy,” she said. “Our family needs your prayers. There might be something the matter with the baby.”

She was in the fourth month, and a routine sonogram had picked up some disturbing information—the baby’s skeleton was not developing normally.

“Downs again?” I asked, but she said no, that it seemed to be something totally unrelated, maybe brittle bone disease or some kind of dwarfism or some combination of both. They would have to wait a while for more tests.

I asked her how she and Hector were doing, and she said okay. The baby was a boy. They’d found that out, too.

When I got off the phone I looked up brittle bone disease and my heart sank. Affected babies sustain massive fractures just from being born, and spend their lives in pain recuperating from one break after another. I couldn’t imagine Hector and Ashley and the girls having to witness their little one suffer so. I prayed hard for dwarfism. That was manageable, I thought. Sure, there would have to be lots of accommodations, but this family was used to that.

The rest of the pregnancy was filled with questions for which there were as yet no answers. The amniocentesis shed no light. Ominously, one of the possibilities mentioned was Osteogenesis Imperfecta Type 2, the most severe form of the brittle bone syndromes. If the baby had that, he would most surely die shortly after birth.

No one who knew Hector and Ashley doubted that they would continue the pregnancy, whatever the outcome. Even so, I still cannot imagine the courage it took, knowing there was a chance they would hold their baby for only a few minutes and then say goodbye.

But Hector and Ashley already knew that blessings come in all guises. This tiny boy, Hector David Sanchez was, and always would be, their son. They would keep him safe where he was for as long as they could, and hold him for his time on earth. He would know the love of his mother and father, his sisters and grandparents. They would place his future in God’s hands, as in truth, all parents must.

Ashley opted for a caesarean despite the fact that she’d had no trouble delivering the girls. She wanted to spare the baby the trauma of natural birth.

Hector David was born July 20 2001. It was immediately obvious that he would not live long.

The family took turns holding and loving him. He was baptized by their parish priest, and after 45 minutes, his little life ended.

When Ashley recovered from the surgery, baby Hector David was brought to Down Home Ranch, and his ashes buried in Sara's Garden under a large cedar elm, where a white river rock marks the space.

Hector and Ashley visit the spot during their many volunteering stints, and when Christine—now a lively, lovely teenager—arrives and departs from summer camp.

The Sanchez clan remains a happy, healthy family of six, from which one has departed, leaving behind a legacy of great love.

And life goes on.