Skewed view

The more I talk to Dad about your accident, the more I realize how messed up his thinking is about it. No wonder he's having such a hard time about it. On Tuesday night during his rant after Hope's game when he announced his plans to move out again, Hope got on his case and pointed out how that worked out so great before because you died the week he moved out. He then pointed out that maybe if he hadn't have come back that maybe the timing would have been different in your accident and you wouldn't have hit the truck. I told him that's not how it works. It was your time to go regardless.

Last night I was talking to him about things and mentioned how I had the thought that I wrote about of how maybe you waited to actually leave this earth when we were in the room with you singing Jesus songs and that maybe those songs we were singing ushered you into heaven. That maybe when you left your body you could see all of us before you left. I came to this conclusion because the doctors think you actually died sometime on Thursday afternoon but they couldn't call it until 12 hours after because you were a child. This thought also occurred to me from Pastor's intro to your baptism audio that you died with your family by your side. That stood out to me too, like why would he say that, but then I remembered that time when we were brought in to see you.

Dad said he didn't think that you died until all of the machines stopped, that your soul didn't leave your body until then. I said that's not how brain death works-when your brain dies, you die. Machines can keep things going endlessly, but the person is still technically dead. Your heart is still beating in someone else's body, but that doesn't mean you're still alive.

I then asked how he was doing with things and he said he still can't understand why God took you. He thinks that you could've still touched lives by being alive. I was tempted to ask if he thought he knew better than God, but decided against that. I went with instead with the statement that unfortunately people don't take God seriously until something like this happens. I then went on to tell him how many people heard the Gospel at one time-we couldn't have told that many people in any of our lifetimes. I also said how we will never know the full impact of this incident until we get to heaven. I badly paraphrased a verse that said our trouble is working an eternal weight of glory for us and that we have more time ahead of us with you than we had here.

Other things we discussed was what Tina said on her deathbed that she would find you and tell you we miss and love you. I reminded him that I asked Tina that at one point, not to get credit for it but he forgets things like that sometimes and I think it's ok when you have part in something to point that out.

He is in bad shape if those are the types of things that are going through his head. He won't talk to anybody, so I hope he listens to what I say now and then. I am thankful for how God has brought me through. It's still extremely difficult but I realize how blessed I am to understand these things and to be motivated to read books, the Bible, etc. Love you so much!