After Noah died, I had this idea to make a bench in his memory. Everyone in our family had the opportunity to paint their own tile for Noah. The younger kids just did handprints, but picked out the color they wanted. We painted the tiles at The Mad Potter and they fired, grouted and sealed the whole bench. I wanted to put the bench somewhere special, so we made a garden in the backyard. It is now my “Garden of Hope.” I planted espiranza bushes in the back that produce yellow trumpet-shaped blooms from summer till frost. Espiranza means “hope”, hence my “Garden of Hope.”

Thank you to all my family who edulged me by painting a tile. Each one represents just how much Noah is loved.

Romans 8 says, “… We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.” I have heard many people say that, but felt that more than ever tonight. Driving home tonight after a less than uplifting doctor’s visit, I cried out in prayer to God. But I literally had nothing in my head, no words came to my mouth, all the hurt was there, but it only came out as a groan. And thank God that is all I had to do. I don’t have to put into words what I feel or what I want. Thank God that he knows my every thought and need even before I do.

I thought I had come to terms with the idea that we may never know what happened to Noah. And that was okay. He was the way he was because God made him that way. It was not an accident or a punishment, it just was. But as Ethan and I look to the future of another child, Noah’s condition really clouds that lens. All of the questions about Noah turn into percentages of suffering the same loss with another child. Without knowing what caused it no one can say it won’t happen again. There are still conversations to be had and questions to ask, but that is weighing heavily on my mind tonight. We left Texas Children’s with the impression that this was not genetic and should not affect future pregnancies, but tonight I feel different. All I feel are groans.

On a lighter note, I saw my first real rainbow last night. I have seen many in my lifetime, but now a rainbow has a new meaning. The rainbow is a sign of the covenant between God and life on earth, but the rainbow also reminds me of Noah. It was a beautiful site. It gave me peace and put a smile on my face. Alyssa paints on paper and my Noah paints in the sky.

I had a strange thought awhile back. I don’t remember what my dad’s hands looked like. I am not sure why this bothers me so much. Maybe it is because I spend so much time looking at mine. They are pretty much in front of me all day long and I wonder if mine look like his. I wonder if we use them the same way in conversation. I wonder if we had the same mannerisms and gestures. It is hard to believe it has been almost 10 years since he died.

I think about his hands because they are so important to who you are. They are how he earned his living. They are how he carried us and comforted us. They are a big part of how he communicated with us. I think back now to all those times he made me hold his hand in public even as a young teenager. I don’t know if it was to help keep him steady (editor’s note: my dad was handicapped) or some other reason. I know he once told me he he was proud to hold my hand and that in other countries the customs were quite different about holding hands. Dad never traveled to other countries so I don’t know if he just made that part up to hold on as long as he could. Maybe now I know why.

I think maybe deep down Dad always knew alot more about what was happening to him then he let on. He and mom sheltered us kids as long as possible. How I long to just hold his hand now. The similarities between his passing and Noah’s passing are interesting. Both going home “before their time”, of course the next logical question is when is the right time? Both having severe brain problems, both dying of respiratory failure. Both with the middle name Allen. I look back now and wonder what was God preparing me for? And just like Mom and Dad sheltered me what has my heavenly Father sheltered me from?

I think of Abraham’s hands wrapped around the knife, white knuckled with sweat dripping off his brow. Isaac, not laughing, bound montionless waiting to see what’s going to happen. But the angel of the Lord cried out Abraham! I can’t imagine how quickly Abraham’s hands worked to undo the bindings on Isaac. (I also wonder as Isaac grew older if he remembers the incident, what a story for family reunions.) But why did he save Abraham’s son and not mine? Did I not show enough faith? Were my hands not raised to heaven?

But alas I realize that my faith is not that of Abraham’s. I doubt I would have been able to place Noah on the altar. I wouldn’t have been able to unsheath the knife. I wouldn’t have been able to willingly sacrifice my son and how I yearn to have him here. Maybe God did it for me and it reminds me of the sacrifice of his Son. How his hands were pierced. The hands with the power to heal, the power to cast out, the hands with the power to calm the waves. How his hands have lifted me up! I am thankful that the master carpenter was a able to build the bridge between me and God. Now I just have walk across it each day and take hold of his hand. – Ethan

Why do you see guys take practice golf swings when they get bored? I know, I know it’s a “mental” game, but aren’t they all? I never see guys practicing pickoff moves or their five-step drop or boxing out for a rebound. I have never seen a dude come into a store and knock down a young sales clerk because she was trying to crash the boards. But when he takes his practice swing are we all supposed to hush and clap politely when he completes his follow through swinging his imaginary club at his imaginary ball placed on his imaginary tee with it then flying down his imaginary par 5 towards an imaginary green? I’m imagining it hit an imaginary tree and landed in the imaginary bunker where he going to score a very real triple bogey. Fundamentals of the game should be practiced while doing the game not while your significant other is trying on clothes. Something tells me all amatuer golfers are just waiting for his or her inner professional to be released. I doubt if I stood around in Target taking practice free kicks I will somehow make it to the MLS. So, uh, Tiger take a seat – she’ll be done in a minute.

– Ethan

Lord, I wanted to hold my little boy on my lap and tell him about You.
Since I can’t do that, will You hold him on Your lap and tell him about me?
~Anonymous

Noah would have been 2 months old yesterday. Amazing the time has gone that fast, and somehow it seems like a year ago since I held him. Alyssa and I have been letting balloons go to Noah almost daily now. We got the idea when I saw hundreds of balloons lifted into the air at a church function. I was imagining them making their way all the way up to Noah. A friend of mine bought me a helium tank so we can make our own balloons whenever we want. Alyssa asks,”Make a balloon for Noah?” So she picks out the color she wants, we blow it up, and we walk outside and say “Here you go Noah”, then let them go. Alyssa watches for a bit then forgets. I, on the other hand, stare into the sky and watch that balloon for as long as I can. And wonder if it could actually make it up to my Noah. Wonder if he looks down on us and joins in the fun. Wonder if he knows that I miss him so much. I ask Alyssa if Noah is happy in heaven and she says “Yeah!”. But you know how smart kids are, when I asked Blakely the same thing she said, “No.” I said, “Why is he not happy?” Blakely said, “He misses his sister.” Amazing that four year olds understand the pain too.

I miss you Noah.

This is a post to respond to, so remember that as you read.
Yesterday, I was talking to a good friend from college about his news of a son to be born in late October. So what is your first response to this news? Whats his name?
Noah, he said.
And I stopped. Its not often during the day you run across these moments, or maybe it is. Where you are reminded, something is just not right. And you say to yourself, “@#$(%” … or sometimes I find myself just blocking it out as hard as I can so you dont have to respond to it. Like tonight at church, watching the powerpoint during the songs, and seeing a Rainbow. Yeah, God sent a rainbow after Noah’s journey in the OT didn’t he, and it sure applies to Noah Whaley as well. I was also pondering the life of Ira, 2 months old yesterday. I love you little man.

Its so easy to just forget it, and block it, and pretend, and move-on…. isn’t it?
Tell me, whats different now for you? Have you found yourself coming across people or places or thoughts that remind of our precious Noah’s life?
Ok.. I’ll start, I put a visitor sticker in the front of my bible when i went up to see Noah one evening, May07,2005. One of the few times I spent alone with my nephew, reading scripture, praying, and just talking about my job and family. So everytime I open my bible, I’m reminded of his life. (Powerful statement isn’t it)

Tell me more…would you? How did Noah impact your life?

I am still here. Somehow. I can’t believe that it has been over a month since I have seen my boy’s face. The time has gone by fast, yet slow. But I am still here. That is all I can do is just be here. I wake up in the morning and decide to just get up, then just take a shower, then get Alyssa and the rest of the day goes on. Life just goes on. I lay in bed most every night and just think of Noah. I can remember everything from his birth to his last breath. And I am thankful that all of that stays in my memory. But things are getting harder I think. (Sorry mom) The first weeks were just trying to make it through, and now as reality sets in, day after day after day, it gets harder to believe. Every morning is a reminder that “damnit, this is my life isn’t it?” “This really happened to ME.”

I received a copy of Natalie Grant’s song, Held. It is a beautiful song that I am beginning to understand more and more each time I listen to it. Some of the words are:

Two months is, too little
They let him go
They had no sudden healing.
To think that providence
would take a child from his mother while she prays is appalling.

Who told us we’d be rescued?
What has changed and why should we be saved from nightmares?
We’re asking why this happens
to us who have died to live,
it’s unfair.

This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
and you survive.
This is what it is to be loved,
and to know that the promise was
when everything fell we’d be held.

My point? The first dozen times I listened to the song, I focused on the first part of the song. My son is gone. You did not heal him. Why would you take him from a family who is praying? And this is how I feel, because the sacred in my life is gone. But as I continued to listen my heart was softened to the other message of this song. No where does it say that we would be rescued of pain, saved from nightmares. All He told us is that when everything fell apart, we would be held and loved. Does that make things better? No. But it reminds me that He is there, and if all He can do for me right now is hold me, then that is enough. It has to be because no one is giving me anything better. God only gives us what we can handle and I am handling it. The tears come alot easier for me now than they used to, but I am still here.

“How are you doing?”, and countless variations, is a question I don’t think anybody honestly answers. How many times at church, or work, or hundreds of other places does has a fake answer come from my lips? I’m good, doin’ fine, great, never better, wonderful, fantastic, great, marvelous, fabulous, very good, excellent, terrific. I won’t go so far as to call them lies and most of the time I probably honestly believe it. But how different would our fellowship be if we all answered that question openly. I’m struggling, hurting, confused, embarrased, aching, anguished, in other words I’m grieving.

It’s a question I honestly can’t answer when someone asks. My mind swirls with thoughts of each emotion until he or she starts talking in a need to break the akward silence.

I’m struggling with Laura’s question of God’s hand slipping. I had no idea that was even possible; thanks for a whole new realm of possibilities to contemplate.

I’m hurting physically with a possible stomach ulcer. So much for the summer of George.

I’m confused on so many levels of theology, philosophy, and sociology. How do I respond to so many people?

I’m embarrased for feeling so down.

I’m aching watching my wife struggle with so many of her own questions.

I’m anguished over the heart-ache so many people have experienced.

But I also know that all of that is okay, and these emotions are real. They make me feel alive. They make me want to lean on God. They make me want to pray. They make me want sit in silence and just listen.

Father God only you know, even more that I do, all of my hurts and emotions. Take them Father. For I fear somedays they might overwhelm me. I need your strength and your will to carry me through. Help me Father to listen for your voice in the noise and rejoice that you have heard me. – Ethan

Noah would have been 1 month old today. I feel a strong urge to use “should have been” but it doesn’t feel right. It’s difficult to rationalize the difference because my heart wants to the know latter rather than the former. My heart longs to have him here but my brain keeps reminding he’s not. And that’s the fun part of everyday; emotional vs rational. C.S Lewis says it better than I do. “Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection: the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.” The heart continually reminding the mind that you hurt, you feel loss. And then one day the heart says I am okay, things are good, but all of sudden the mind says why? Are you sure? And the heart starts all over again. Every day for the nine days of his life and every day since.

And there certainly isn’t any escaping it. Everybody in my house knows, everybody at church knows, went back to work last week and they all knew. Went to San Antonio the week before, I’d swear they all knew. Like the giant elephant in the corner of room that nobody wants to talk about for fear the elephant might ramapage and trample me. So what if it tramples me? It’s trampled me in public, behind closed doors, at quiet times, in the busiest times, in the car, at the dinner table. Too many reminders and people to forget so easily. And I certainly don’t want to forget.

My friend WG once remarked about James 1:2-4 that he doesn’t get it. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” He felt like the trials of his life were not deep or intense enough to warrant perseverance, and at the time I felt the same about mine. Today I feel I get it but as I re-read that verse I find another part I don’t like; trials, as in plural. Isn’t one enough? And how many is enough? How much perseverance does one need? I guess you need just enough and God will determine how much in time. So everyday is a mini trial to make it through with just the right amout of testing. Some days the heart wins and other days the mind.