Packing up the dreams God planted
In the fertile soil of you
Can’t believe the hopes He’s granted
Means a chapter of your life is through.
~Michael W. Smith
I find Jacoba Brenda in a storage tub, buried with her sisters under musty newborn-turned-doll clothes. I gently pull her out and cup her beany body with both hands. I lay my cheek against her cold, bald head, and I remember.
We brought the double-dimpled, paci-faced preemie home for our daughter’s first birthday. It displaced all her favorite toys, including her plush “duckie” rattle. She couldn’t sleep without it.
Her then knit-capped head snuggled against two-year-old Abby’s cheek while I cradled them both just before the doctors shut off her grandmother’s life support.
Days later I pulled Jacoba Brenda, soaked, from a babysitter’s backyard wading pool where she had spent the night of the funeral face down, forgotten—and Abby had spent the night with empty arms.
Jacoba Brenda was a very cooperative patient during let’s-play-doctor days and still has BandAid “scars” on her legs from “shots.”
When I tell a grown Abby I’ve found J.B. in a storage tub with her dirt-smeared face and pink highlighter-lined eyebrows, Abby remembers how special she was—and still is . . .
Did you have a Jacoba Brenda to help hold you through the hard stuff? Meet me in the comments over at The High Calling where I share the the rest of this story…
Still remembering,
Sandy
Linking with sweet friends and storytellers, Jennifer, and Emily
