White Horse

I’ve had a memory that has resurfaced and keeps coming up in my mind as of late.  Its odd because I can’t connect it with a trigger. There’s no sight, sound or smell that brings it on.  It just seems to come up out of nowhere.  Today I was driving to a friend’s house and it popped in my mind again.  I ran the memory all the way through like a slideshow in my mind.  I searched for the significance- other than it just being a HUGE moment in my life.  I realized that this memory pinpoints when my grief began.

Losing the twins was sad, extremely painful and difficult.  But I realized that my grief did not start until a few days after it was all over.  I remember where I was and what I was doing.  I remember the cold, hard truth hitting me in the face with the force of a lead baseball bat.  I remember having to face the facts of our new normal the first time by calling the funeral home.  That was not an easy call to make but I knew I had to do it.  How do you start that conversation, over the phone, with a stranger.  “Um, yes, my two dead children are there waiting for cremation?”  Awkward.  But alas, I dialed.

I honestly don’t remember much of the conversation right now but all I remember is that they didn’t know who we were.  We had filled out a form at the hospital, releasing their bodies to the funeral home to complete the cremation.  We were supposed to get a call from them, which we never did.  When I called the funeral home I found out why.  The form we filled out was for the wrong funeral home.  There are two funeral homes with very similar names.  I had assumed it was the one close to our house.  I assumed wrong.  This is when the grief hit, and hit HARD. 

I freaked out and called the hospital in search of my babies.  The paperwork had never been filed.  They were still at the hospital.  I was mad.  I’m not proud of the words that I said to that poor hospital employee.  I trusted the hospital and Lucas and Lorelei got lost in a shuffle of paperwork.  I truly felt like I abandoned my children.  I had lost my children a second time. 

I have never cried like that in my life.  There was wailing, moaning and rocking.  My poor mother was a witness to it all.  She held it together to comfort me.  Later I found out that she went downstairs and had her own breakdown.  How could you not?  How can you watch your daughter in such pain and have your heart remain intact? 

Denny was out getting his car tuned up (sidenote: he just went to the dealership for another tune up.  He thought he was due for more service than he was.  Turns out this is the day that he got his car tuned up.  When they discovered that mistake, the girl giggled and said something like “how quickly we forget”.  The date was October 21^st, two days after we lost the twins.  I think he had bigger things on his mind lady.).  When he got home I explained what happened.  Now I was angry but Denny was LIVID!  I’ve never seen him fume like that.  He was about to charge out the door and confront them in person. My mom stopped him though and told him that dad was already there.

Yall.  My dad swooped in like a knight on a white horse.  While I was moaning and lamenting, dad took action.  He drove out to the hospital on his own.  He tracked down the hospital chaplain.  He walked into the chaplain’s office and said “I came to you because I need someone with a heart”.  He explained the situation and let the chaplain take over.  They walked all over the hospital, tracking down the paperwork that was necessary to get this taken care of.  He even did the unthinkable.  He demanded (for those of you who know my dad- can you even picture dad demanding anything?  Kind of makes me chuckle… a little joy in the midst of this painful story) to see Lucas and Lorelei.  He had seen them when we were in the hospital room so he knew what they looked like.  But he demanded that they take him down to the morgue to identify them so that we were sure of where they were and where they were going.  I cannot imagine how hard that would have been to do.  These were his grandchildren.  That is not how you want to see your grandchildren.  But he did it for his daughter.  He did it for the sake of confident assurance in a time where nothing made sense.  Dad wasn’t out to be a hero I’m sure but he was a hero to me. 

I don’t think I said much to him on Father’s Day.  I said the usual “thank you for being you” type message.  I honestly don’t remember if I got him a card.  This memory is forever etched in my mind.  The tears, the indescribable pain. But also the knight on the white horse, my daddy.  My rescuer.  He faced a dragon to bring comfort to his little girl.  I’d say that is worth much more than a Happy Father’s Day.  My children rest peacefully on our mantle because of my daddy.  The knight on the white horse brought them home.