I struggled to get to get to sleep last night. I kept replaying in my mind the last night with Julia. It was a rough one. Julia took a huge nose-dive around 7:00pm. She woke up in the middle of the night and was clearly agitated. Her breathing also became more labored and she would gasp for air from time to time. It was absolutely horrible. I just remember getting up in the middle of the night to feed her with the pump and being so exhausted and Julia being so agitated and saying to God, "Lord, I just don't know how much longer I can do this!" I was just so tired physically and emotionally. I had no idea it was my last night with her. It is horrible to relive those kinds of things. One would think that I wouldn't want to. But the irony is that I do. I don't want to forget. Keeping all the details alive keeps Julia alive in my heart. I think it is important and significant to remember.
It was our plan to leave right from church to drive to Julia's bench at Mt. Hermon. However, it was raining harder than ever when we got done with church so we decided to delay an hour or two. The rain did eventually die down a bit and so after lunch we hit the road.
The drive to Scott's Valley over the Santa Cruz mountains wasn't too bad, overall. As we climbed up highway 17, it got progressively more misty and foggy. And as we pulled into Mt. Hermon, it was raining steadily. We decided at that time that we would drive into Santa Cruz and buy some time. Mattie had gone to the Seymour Marine Lab on a field trip earlier that week and was given a free kids pass to come back. So we decided to go check it out. Amazingly, it was not raining in Santa Cruz and the museum was not too crowded. Mattie enjoyed showing her daddy all the things she had seen on her field trip including petting the shark and exploring the touch tank. Also included in the admission was a tour to see the dolphins and learn more about the marine lab. It was cold and breezy but not raining so we decided to do it. At the museum, I was feeling very happy. I was thinking that even if we didn't get to Julia's bench due to the weather, it made me very happy that we were having a special and fun time as a family. For me, that was part of honoring Julia. It was about being intentional about setting aside time to do something special.
Here is a photo of us at the museum:
We left the museum and thankfully it was not raining we we returned to Mt. Hermon. We brought a towel and walked to the bench. When we got there we wiped down the bench to dry if off so we could sit on it. It looked very clean, almost like someone had cleaned it recently. It also looked like they had pruned the ivy and other bushes around it. That was very nice. We didn't spend long at the bench. But it was nice to have visited.
Finally, we left Mt. Hermon and drove to Ben Lomond to the Tyrollean Inn, a German restaurant we like to visit when we're in the area. Mattie especially likes it because they have a kids' area to play in an enclosed "outdoor" patio area with heat lamps. That is where we ate. During dinner, I asked Mattie to tell me what she remembered about Julia. She remembered that she has bright red hair and that she had to eat through a tube in her nose. She couldn't remember a lot. I told Mattie at that point, that I understood that she was very young when Julia was alive and when she died. She was only 4 years old. I told her that I thought it was important that we always took some special time to remember her because I didn't want her to forget about Julia, that I wanted her always remember that she had a sister. She told us that she sometimes wished she had a sister and that sometimes she is lonely, especially when Bob or I are busy doing other things. I told her that we tried very hard to give her a sister but that my body just didn't make babies very easily. I told her how much we wanted her to have a sister. But I also told her that for some reason it was not hard for my body to make her and that she was my very special little girl. I teared up when telling her that and she teared up, too. It was a special moment. We ended our meal with some yummy dessert to share and then drove back over the hill home. By the end of the day I was pretty emotionally exhausted but feeling very satisfied and content and happy with how the day turned out.
