Dressing our Girls

July 23, 2008 - Wednesday

We spent part of the afternoon at the mortuary, dressing our girls for the first and last time. It had been a week since their birth, a week since we'd said our good-byes. But, there in that room in the mortuary, we realized that our good-byes from the week before weren't really final. Though their bodies are no longer united with their spirits, they are still very much with us.

We included some special items in their casket. We made two matching pillows, one to lay their bodies on, and one for us to keep to remind us of them. I also made two matching necklaces for Elliana and Emmaline, and a matching bracelet for me. We wrapped their bodies in a blanket my Mom had crocheted, and covered them in a blanket that my sister-in-law made. We put some notes and letters in with them, too.

Words don't exist to try to describe our experience that day. Here are just a couple of photos:

*these are the dresses the hospital sent us home with, for our girls.

*these are the pillows we made, one for them, one for us

*the matching necklaces and bracelet.

We also included a beautiful poem my Dad wrote, in honor of his granddaughters:

Lord, How Is It Done?

How is it
That holding them brought
Such sweet peace
When dreams and plans had been snatched away?
One bruised little body,
Tiny token of the gift of her life's blood,
That her sibling might live and stay.
A reflection however dim:
This too bears record of Him,
Of God's own Son
Who in Gethsemane
Sent blood from every pore
To give us life and make us one.
Here then is the two-fold source:
The incomparable gift that binds forever,
Infinite love
From the Prince of Peace
and
Angel twins that beckon us.

-Grandpa Jim