First Easter

Easter came and went like the rain - quiet,
relentless, broken by bits of sun and punctuated by
soft showers. Josie and Gordon spent the day with
Karen and Jerry and their kids in Banks. From
Chehalis, Gramma Cooke reported that Katie and her
cousin Kendall wore Easter dresses to church while
Carter stayed at Uncle Gary's house with Reid and
Connor and did "boy stuff."

JoAnn and I hung out with Nanette at LadyBug 1. Silus
is LadyBug 3. LadyBug 2 is empty, for now. The space
is big, but stuffed with ECMO machines and monitors
and chairs for us and Albert (Silus' dad), a few
nurses, and the occasional wandering resident. Silus'
mom would have been there too, but she came down with
a case of the flu a couple of days ago. It locked her
out of the NICU and put us all on notice about the
ramifications of getting sick.

Angie popped in and out during the day. Every now and
then we heard a baby cry somewhere in the distance.
We read books, distracted between paragraphs by the
soft ping of an alarm or a glance at the SATS that
made us do a double take.

SATS are the oxygen saturation numbers. A monitor
above Nanette's bed shows her heart rate, SATS and
respiratory rate. It hooks you in like a soap opera.
It's weird how those three wavy lines can engross the
eye and the mind and fuel the imagination. There's
too much time to ponder.

Time moves differently here. It shifts and dilates
like the dark iris of an eye. Some moments fly by
while the hours slip slowly, and days are measured by
the changes in staff, between 7 and 8 every morning
and evening.

At noon, a church group served ham slices and
scalloped potatoes and beans and corn on paper plates
up on floor three, near the pediatric unit. At five
we came back down to The House and volunteers from
Hands On Portland gave us another meal of turkey and
mashed potatoes with coconut cream pie and brownies
for desert. We waited for a hailstorm to pass by and
then went back up and spent a few more hours with
Nanette. JoAnn changed a diaper, took Nanette's
temperature, touched her gently like only a mommy can.
Sometimes Nan opens her baby-dark eyes for a groggy
moment and Angie and I jump up to catch a glimpse, or
maybe we do it hoping to be seen by her. But mostly,
Nanette sleeps.

This day was so quiet and peaceful, that a part of us
just wanted it to go on and on. Monday is surgery.
Scheduled for the afternoon. On the books for 2, but
the exact time depends on the patients before. Four
hours of surgery, at least an hour in intensive
recovery. We may see her at 7, or 9. We take
everything moment by moment. Time does move at a
different pace. You adjust or go crazy.

Monday will be waiting and hoping and resting and just
living in each moment, taking comfort by knowing that
we are in a place of miracles.

That reminds me, today, Becky's son Joshua drank two
teaspoons of milk from a bottle. Miracles don't come
in sizes. Moses parted the Red Sea. Jesus fed the
masses. A flower blooms. Joshua takes a nipple and
doesn't gag. What Moses did is impressive, but in our
little world here, what Joshua and Becky did, leaping
from setback to improvement, is relevant. That's the
real power of a miracle - the power to give hope.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring? All we know is
that right now we're okay. That's enough.