Follow Up Care

3+ weeks after Jessica's passing, we're still getting on with life. The cards and e-mails are slowing down, but we still get some gems of encouragement each day.

A friend from Michigan named Jim sent an e-mail reminding me to choose joy this Thanksgiving and citing a couple verses from James. While the details are vague in my mind, I recall him losing suddenly at least 1 family member an possibly 2 earlier this year. So his words carry some punch for me, as he also is moving ahead.

A couple days ago we received an empty cradle box from a church in Colorado where my brother is pastor of Family Ministries and where my father is involved. Thanks Nancy and Lorna. They have a ministry called "Empty Cradle Ministry" for families who have suffered a miscarriage, stillborn or death of a young child. It included the books "Free to Grieve: Healing and Encouragement for Those Who Have Suffered Miscarriage and Stillbirth" by Maureen Rank (Bethany House, 1985) and "Mommy, Please Don't Cry...There Are No Tears in Heaven" by Linda DeYmaz (Multnomah, 2003). Linda DeYmaz has a website titled www.mommypleasedontcry.com Both books will be part of our journey.

A pastor named Mark and his intern Lois paid us a visit yesterday. We met Mark while taking a ministerial stress seminar by Clive Sampson 7 years ago. Mark heard about our loss, telephoned us right away, and came to the memorial celebration. He followed up his promise to give us a call in a couple of weeks and came by yesterday. It was an encouraging and cordial time together. He has raised 7 kids in Paris, which is already something that we have huge respect about. This morning he invited us over for tomorrow for a Thanksgiving meal with his family.

My wife has mentioned that her biggest challenge at this point is coming up with meals each evening. We've had lots of offers for help in different ways, so we'll need to channel some of them toward the meal service.

We're now planning on taking a week away (December 4-10). Some friends in Alsace in eastern France have offered for us to stay with them. It's about 5 hours by car away, which is a short trip for us. At this point, we just need some time away together to see some different things. There is snow there now, so our kids might get a rare occasion to play in the white stuff.

We've appreciated the generosity of some friends and churches already in helping with some of the unexpected expenses related to Jessica's death. Some of them are still to come, like our getaway next month, as well as a potential trip to the U.S. in summer 2009 in order to place a memorial plaque for Jessica at the family gravesite of my wife's family. It seems important for our kids in particular to have a specific place and time to do this. If anyone is interested in contributing in Jessica's memory, please let us know