I’m a Darling…Daughter

When my kiddos were young, and when I’d take ALL of them (minus one…) anywhere, I’d have to “count heads” to reassure myself I was keeping track of my brood. My tribe. My quiver. My lovelies.

My darlings.

My late mother spoke of her six daughters often. And while I remember being called “Darling Daughter Number 5,” it was quite endearing to me that her pastor asked each of us when we met about her memorial service, “Which Darling Daughter are you?”

We rage against being “merely a number” in this digital age. Really. I am more than a number, damnit!

But……

To my mother, my deeply loving mother, I was always a significant number in a precious quiver:

I was Darling Daughter #5. Aletra.

No less significant than Darling Daughter #1, nor more significant than Darling Daughter #6.

One of Sylvia’s Darling Daughters.

Precious.

Loved.

Cherished.

I love and miss you. Mom.

©Aja Hart, 2015 (DD#5)

Really, Truly Okay

“Your mom’s not okay,” a mutual friend told one of my daughters after my dad’s passing last November. “She’s in the middle of a divorce, her dad just died. She’s not okay.”

translation: “She can’t be okay.”

How compassionate of this individual. And how presumptuous to think he knew my journey. In his mind, I could not possibly be okay given the events of my life at that time.

I wonder what it is like to have a relationship with one’s father such that losing that father would be catastrophic. World-shattering. Mournful.

I lost my dad years ago, when he decided his opinions about Hispanics (and any ‘non-whites’) superceded the unconditional acceptance that six of his grandchildren (who were half-Hispanic) should have enjoyed.

“Mom, are you really, truly okay?” Rasaja asked.

“I am, mija. I thought I would have a hard time with this, but I promise I am not on the edge of disaster, not in denial about what’s swirling around me and not fretting about the future. I am more confident than I have ever been that the best is yet to come.”

And it has.

And it shall continue to be so.

© Aja Hart 2014.10.28

Decade

I am astonished that tonight marks a decade since I learned that prayers do not go unanswered…but specific ones — the ones where you tell God exactly what needs to be done — sometimes do.

My requests for God to wholly heal our daughter floated heavenward each day…countless times a day… the entire time Riál spent at Children’s Hospital in Seattle. One day brought fabulous news and good reports about her progress, and the next, devastation.

One day would bring her team of doctors to us, fully confident that she was out of the woods, and the next day, the same team of doctors as perplexed as they were confident just the day before.

As a little girl brings her dolly to her daddy, saying “Daddy, can you fix her,” I brought our girl to the Great Healer, beseeching anew each day that He heal her and make her whole because He could. And why wouldn’t He?

It was Monday, November 20th when I finally had the strength to whisper this prayer: “Lord, I’ve been telling You what needs to happen. I’ve been asking You to heal Riál and make her whole on my terms.  But if  making her whole means having her there with You in heaven, then I’m okay with that. I just don’t want her to suffer anymore.”

The rest of the day brought a few surprises for the better, including marked improvement in her condition by that night, so when we left the NICU at 11:45 to get some sleep in our NICU parent’s sleeping room, we were feeling pretty relieved.

I guess she was too. She let go that night.

At 2 AM on the 21st, her nurse did the hourly neuro exam and everything was fine. Twenty minutes later, all the alarms went off and she was gone.

Gone, except for the machines that kept her heart pumping and her lungs moving air.

But she wasn’t in there.

She waited for her mom to be ready to say goodbye.

The very loving, compassionate God whom I worship agreed with her. So He sustained her.

This year, Thanksgiving is on the tenth anniversary of the day we buried her, and you’d better believe I will remember to be thankful for the whole experience.

© Aja Lopez, 2010