And finally, as I type this note, a 26-year-old woman at Loyola Medical Center is having her hopelessly diseased lungs removed. Yesterday, she was told she had less than 24 hours to live unless they could find an organ donor match. When she wakes up in a few hours, she will be breathing with Katie’s fresh, healthy lungs. They will save her life.
September, the kids, and I are in a good place. We are overwhelmed with sadness and loss. But as we think through alternative ways this scenario could have played out, we are feeling a renewed appreciation for God’s love, provision, and sovereignty.
At this stage, we are anticipating a reception and a memorial service this coming Friday and Saturday at Willow Creek Community Church. We will send you details once they are known. We would be honored if you would join us.
We so appreciate you!
Scott and September
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.
HEBREWS 6:19
Oh no, You never let go
Through the calm and through the storm. . . .
Lord, You never let go of me.
FROM “YOU NEVER LET GO,” BY MATT REDMAN
22
MY PILLOW IS WET WHEN I STARTLE AWAKE at four thirty. As the muddiness of an hour’s sleep clears from my head, I remember: My daughter is dead.
I must get up. I must move. Silently, I slip out of bed and tiptoe downstairs. The house is silent and dark. A pile of unfamiliar shoes by the front door reminds me that while I was away, the house filled with people who are mourning the death of my daughter.
The death of my daughter. These words shock me. There I stand, in my same kitchen—with my same coffeepot on the counter; my same brownie pan, washed and drying upside down by the sink; my same oak kitchen table with its scar on one end, a reminder of when Sam superglued his pet rock there at age three; my same candlesticks from Grandma on the table, tapers partly burned from the last dinner our family shared.
Everything looks the same. But nothing is the same. The entire world has been scrambled. I have a dead daughter. My daughter is dead. Katie is dead. I whisper the d word aloud several times, hoping familiarity will rob it of its sting.
I pace, unable to sit, unable to think what to do. My chest aches. I want to bawl. I cried plenty of tears in the hospital but always with an awareness of the people around me—and a sense of responsibility for how my tears might affect my watchful children. Now, at last, I can cry alone. I can weep openly, wholeheartedly, for my loss as a mom.
I step outside onto the back deck and breathe in the sultry June air. The hawthorn tree Katie painted just three days ago stands unchanged in its bed of strawberries at the edge of the deck, casting an early morning shadow onto the lawn. I cross the deck, pass under the tree, and walk barefoot through the damp grass to the far edge of our backyard, where a thin line of woods separates our property from a pasture of undeveloped land. There, alone at last, I weep—silently at first, then in heaving, throat-aching sobs. Foreign, anguished sounds—wails rolling unencumbered from my chest.
I search for God. The veil between us is paper-thin. I feel smaller, more human, more vulnerable than I have ever felt before—fully in touch with the agony this world holds and fully in touch with God’s rugged, tender presence. The air is electric. Is Katie here too? Is she hovering unseen, nearby? I turn, scanning the yard, the woods, the sky—half expecting to spot her peeking at me from behind a tree, an impish grin on her face.
I long to lay my body down on the ground, prostrate before God, and just surrender. Give in. I long to stretch out my arms and feel the soil beneath me—the solidness of the earth and the smell of spring sod—to demonstrate with my body how utterly helpless I feel. I long to grab God by the ankles and shake Him and demand He give me my old life back—and if He will not grant me this, I want to cry uncle, to shove this mess into His lap and demand that He fix it in some only-God way that far outstrips my human imagination.
All this I long to do, but I hold back. Instead, I stand there on the lawn rocking on my toes, hugging myself, paralyzed. Why do I resist?
The grass is wet, I reason. I’m wearing just pajama pants and a T-shirt. If I lie down, I will stand back up, braless, with a wet T-shirt covered in bits of grass. How embarrassing. And what if someone sees me lying facedown on the wet lawn? What if Jeremiah—the grad school intern who lives in our spare bedroom just off the deck—wakes up and spots me from his window? It would be weird. People would worry. They would think I have lost it.
These are good reasons to hold back, I rationalize. No surrendering. Not now.
Memories of Katie flash through my mind unbidden. I see her standing at the stove just last week, helping me make a batch of apricot jam. “I so look forward to becoming a wife and mom,” she confided. “When I get married, I want to have six kids, and a house with an art studio filled with sunshine, and a little baby crawling around on the floor while I paint.”
A crawling baby didn’t sound like a workable painting environment to me, but I smiled at her idealistic optimism. She stood there stirring that hot jam with a wooden spoon, her hair pulled into a ponytail, a loose curl plastered to her forehead from the steam. How I loved this daughter of mine. You are too good to be true. I wanted to speak those words aloud to her, but as a mother of five equally loved and remarkable kids, I didn’t want to risk anyone mistakenly sensing favoritism. So I held back.
Now, suddenly, I raise my hands—palms grasping toward heaven—and I rage at God.
Noooo! No, God! Nooo!
Don’t You understand? What about the paintings Katie had yet to paint, the drawings yet undrawn, the homemade apple pies with their fancy, filigreed crusts never to be made again?
God, give me my kitchen table crowded once again with all five kids—stories being told, good food shared, laughter reverberating through the air. Give me Katie’s quick, full laugh! Give our family one more conversation, one more dinner, one more game of Speed Scrabble or The Settlers of Catan. Let me watch Katie tell a story again with her contagious exuberance; let me laugh once again at her silly antics. Let me eat her homemade kettle corn—and later I’ll gladly wipe up the splatters she always left on the stove. Let me listen once more to the lessons she felt You were teaching her in college—her growing humility, her broadening compassion. Let me feel the embrace of her arms around my neck and the silky heaviness of her head on my lap as we snuggle together on the couch watching 30 Rock.
And oh, God, what about the wife she longed to become, the mother she longed to be? What about the sun-filled art studio and the little baby crawling around? What about the six children she wanted to have—my six grandchildren? Oh God, no, no, no . . .
And what about our other kids? How will they survive a blow like this? How will our family survive? We were seven, God. Make us seven again!
How can I get through the week that lies ahead? How can I face my kids? I am not enough! Don’t You know? I am not enough. Give me the strength to face my children when they awake. Give me strength to comfort them in their agony when I am drowning in my own.
Dawn comes, as it always does. Everyone will be waking soon. Utterly spent, I drop my arms and wipe the wetness from my face with my T-shirt. I turn toward the house and walk to face the day.
Everything is still quiet in the house. I let the dogs out of their kennel in the laundry room, and they bound to greet me. Alice and Henry, our toy Australian shepherds, are people magnets. Henry is all wiggles, glad to have me home. I rub his head, then off he races to pee, through the doggie door and into the backyard. He is a happy, shallow boy.
Alice, on the other hand, is clearly distraught. Her radar for human emotion is spot-on. She knows something is not right with her people, and she is beside herself. I bend down to pet her, and she tries to jump into my arms. I scoop up her little eight-pound body and bury my face in her fur. She is trembling.
“It’s all right, girl. Mama’s home,” I say in as normal a voice as I can. She isn’t buying
it. I set her down. She sneaks a kiss on my ankle and looks up.
“Outside, girl.” I open the laundry room door. “It’s all right, Alice. Go on outside.”
She hesitates, then hangs her head and begrudgingly obeys.
Before me lurks a finish line: my daughter’s funeral on Saturday. I feel paralyzed by myriad, unknown tasks to be done between now and then. Where to begin? What would I normally do on a busy Monday morning?
I make coffee. Then I sit down at my kitchen desk, turn on my laptop, and robotically click open my e-mail. My in-box is filled with messages from friends. I am shocked at how fast and far the news of Katie has spread. I begin clicking through each note. How soothing it is, just hearing from these people, knowing that they are aware of our pain, that they care, that they love our daughter, that they are praying for us, that they are heartbroken with us. Their words are a cool compress on my blistered soul, and they bolster my spirit. Can this be a part of God’s response to my demand for strength to face this day?
23
THE HOUSE BEGINS TO STIR. One by one, the kids find their way to the kitchen. It feels awkward to see them for the first time. I hug them and whisper, “I am so sorry” into their ears. What else is there to say?
The kids rummage for cereal, bagels, toast. Sandy scrambles a skillet of eggs. Bethany brews a fresh pot of coffee and fills our cups.
We need to formulate some sort of plan for Katie’s memorial. Scott calls a family meeting. “You, too, Sandy,” he says. “You’re family.” Fittingly, we gather in the family room.
Once we are settled, Scott and the kids begin updating me on all that happened on the home front while I was at the hospital.
“You and I have an appointment with the funeral home today at two,” Scott says.
“What funeral home?” I ask.
“Some place in Palatine. Someone from church set it up for us. It’s where they are taking Katie today. Ahlgrim Funeral Home . . .”
“All-Grim Funeral Home?” Bethany asks. “Seriously? That’s like ‘Dr. Whitehead’s Dermatology Clinic’ or ‘Dr. Graves, Geriatrics’!”
Everyone laughs. How I love this girl! Her irreverent humor cuts through the heaviness. We are still Vaudreys, and it is still okay to laugh. We will get through this.
Scott brings us back to business. “Okay, so Mom and I think Katie should be cremated,” he says, “and we think Katie leaned that way too. Do any of you feel differently?”
No one protests.
“Then cremation it is,” he says. “Now to plan the memorial.”
Andrea mentions the idea of a wake, but none of us knows exactly what a wake is. “It’s sort of a pre-memorial open house, where people can stop by and express condolences to the family,” she explains. “We had one when my grandpa died. It’s a nice way to connect with everyone.”
This sounds appealing—a chance to express our gratitude to all the people who mean so much to us. We decide on a Friday night wake and a Saturday morning memorial service, followed by an informal gathering of friends and family here at the house.
“I don’t want Katie’s service to be all heavy and depressing,” Tember says. “She’d hate that! We need to celebrate her! And I don’t like calling the open house thing a ‘wake.’ It sounds creepy.”
When our easygoing youngest child gives a strong voice to something, we all pay attention, and her words ring true.
“Let’s call it a life exhibit,” Bethany suggests. “The Life Exhibit of Katie Vaudrey.” We all agree that this captures the heart of what we want Katie’s wake to be. Not a tribute to loss, but a celebration of her life and of the values she lived out: beauty, creativity, joy, love of friends and family. Slowly, plans for the Life Exhibit begin to take shape. It will be an intimate display of her art interspersed with personal mementos and photographs.
“All of Katie’s art from this past semester will be here in a couple of days,” Andrea says. “I called my dad yesterday, and he agreed to gather everything up and FedEx it to us.” Her dad, a former professor at APU, lives near the school.
“Her stuff is spread all over,” says Bethany. “At my place, in her friends’ apartments, at the art department . . .”
“He’s on it,” Andrea says. “He’s glad to be able to help.”
“That’s awesome, Andrea,” I reply. “Tell him thanks.”
When she hears about our plans, my girlfriend Susan, who hung out with us till the end at the hospital, again serves our family by offering to run point on organizing the Life Exhibit with the help of Katie’s friends from church. “Think ‘New York art exhibit,’” Susan hints. She’s an artsy, hippy soul. Whatever she is envisioning, I know Katie would approve.
Plans for the memorial service begin to take shape as well. This is our one shot at saying goodbye to our girl and honoring the One who gifted her to us for nineteen years, and we gratefully accept every bit of assistance being offered. Bowman—a good friend of Matt’s and a talented graphic designer—agrees to create a slide show for Katie’s memorial. He stations himself in our home office, scrolling through nineteen years’ worth of our family’s photos and videos, pulling clips and pictures that tell the story of our girl. My girlfriend Leanne runs point on organizing the service itself. “Everyone at church has been hit hard by Katie’s death,” she tells us, “and the chapel only seats five hundred. We need to prepare for the sheer number of people who will be there. Let’s move the service to the Lakeside Auditorium. It holds about two thousand.” We don’t expect to need that many seats, but we feel better knowing that no one will be turned away.
Our church’s college pastor and Katie’s mentor, Jon, agrees to lead the service. Brandon, one of our worship leaders and also a friend of Katie’s, will lead the music with his band, and our senior pastor, Bill, will give the message.
“What about eulogies?” Scott asks.
“I think you should speak,” I say. “I know it’s not traditional for immediate family to give a eulogy, but I think you should speak for Katie.”
“Absolutely,” the kids concur.
“Fine,” he says. “Who else?”
“I think Matt should speak, representing the sibs,” I say. “He’s the oldest.” I am full of opinions, having had all of Sunday at the hospital to think about this stuff.
“Then all the kids should speak,” Sam says. “We all love Katie, and we all have our own unique relationships with her.”
“You guys agree?” Scott asks. “Are you all in? No one should feel pressured.”
They all nod. “We’re in,” Tember says.
“If everyone else in the family gets to say something,” I say, “I want to say something too.”
It’s a done deal. We will all give short eulogies. And we’ll invite Kati Harkin and Dan—Katie’s two closest friends—to say a few words too.
Eight eulogies. It’s a long list, but we’re a big family and no one wants to trim anyone out.
The girl will go out in style.
Meeting adjourned.
The wake is scheduled for five o’clock Friday afternoon, and the memorial for ten o’clock Saturday morning. The next step is to meet with the funeral director. I have never been inside a funeral home nor met a mortician. On the drive over, I imagine he will be a tall, thin, serious man in a dark suit, sort of a modern-day, dignified Lurch from The Addams Family.
At two o’clock, Scott and I arrive at Ahlgrim. The lobby is just as I imagined: silk flowers, polished French provincial furniture, the scent of floral air freshener, and elevator music playing in the background. A display of ornate vases with lids glistens in a glass curio in the hall.
The funeral director—sure enough, he’s tall and thin in a navy suit—approaches. With his white hair, piercing blue eyes, and dignified presence, he looks the part. Definitely not Lurch, but perhaps his handsome, friendly cousin.
“Scott and September?” he asks.
“Yes,” Scott says.
“I’m Karl,” he says, “and I
’ll be helping you with arrangements for Katherine’s service. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Karl shakes our hands and is very good at eye contact. I stifle a nervous urge to giggle, but he quickly wins us over with his gentle demeanor—a mixture of calm professionalism and warmth. I have heard he attends our church. Was he there Saturday night when Bill interrupted the service to ask everyone to pray?
Karl leads us to a large room lined with caskets and invites us to sit opposite him at his immaculate cherry desk. Speaking slowly and clearly, he exudes a quiet assurance that things will be done right, just as we want them.
When someone dies, there are more decisions to be made than I ever imagined. For example, even if your loved one will be cremated, you still must purchase a casket for him or her to be cremated in. Embalming costs extra. People being cremated don’t usually get embalmed. “But if you want a viewing before cremation, then embalming is recommended, especially if it will be several days between the time of death and the viewing,” Karl informs us. I get the picture. Embalming, please. Also, for a viewing, you must make decisions about hair, makeup, clothing, and jewelry.
“The wake is Friday, but we want a private viewing for Katie’s boyfriend, Dan, on Thursday, if possible,” I tell him. “He has been out of town since this happened—he won’t learn of Katie’s death until Wednesday—and his mom and I think he’ll want an opportunity to say goodbye.”
“Wise—and kind,” he says. “A viewing can be helpful, especially for young people. So we will plan on embalming. Bring us the clothing you’d like Katherine to wear, and we will dress her before you arrive.”
“We donated Katie’s organs,” Scott says, “and the hospital told us she’ll be wearing a plastic suit of some kind.”
“We deal with this often,” Karl says. “It’s not a problem. The suit will be covered by her clothes.”
Colors of Goodbye Page 12