Maya Journey: Our Mighty Girl

Maya Journey: Our Mighty Girl

I'm not sure if I have shared her nickname but she has most certainly earned it, Maya Grace, our Mighty Girl.

Last week our loved ones at Geisinger from the Janet Weis Hospital partnered up with the good folks at the Great Wolf Lodge in the Poconos and sent us on a very special family vacation.  With it being RSV season and Maya's "difficulty" riding in the car (she would scream out a snot beard every...single...moment in the car), we didn't get out much as a family, and honestly I dreaded the trips to drive the five minutes to Ollie's preschool.  So we took turns, one of us would stay home and snuggle with Maya during this event and the other would take the boys to that event and so on.  It was really enjoyable snuggling with Maya in a quiet house often watching a chick flick and painting nails, and we also missed being together as a family, not in our jammies.  It's sort of like Christmas every day, after a while it's like ok maybe I should wear grown up clothes.  But of course after a while you are like...no I definitely want my jammies back...life is hard:)

So Mindy our dear friend told us about the surprise trip and we were so excited!  I literally packed an entire suit case with just fun snacks, bought everyone Christmas jammies (I have a complicated relationship with jammies I guess), filled the car with baby gear and we were off.  Our sweet hospice nurse met us at the resort and for a couple hours each day sat with Maya in a seriously luxurious suite, she said it was a real hardship:)

Our amazing nurse Marianne and Maya 

For the first time in a long while we were able to just let go of all of our worries and stress and just have fun together as a family.  It was such a special trip for us because we were all together.

My favorite was story time in the grand lobby in the evening with ALL my kids, ok so we are in our jammies...also a bonus, out and about, but we could keep our jammies...see? perfect.

They even made it snow in the lobby. The whole trip was just so magical and fun. I could pretty much be the spokesperson for the place.  We do not know how we will be able to thank our friends at Geisinger for thinking of us and setting this up for our rascal family.

We will treasure the time that we had together on that trip especially.  The past almost six months have been admittedly sometimes stressful and harrowing, sometimes hectic and sleep deprived, sometimes with less patience for that rowdy crew pictured above then I would like (one time Henry threw a diaper at my face and I screamed like Satan), sometimes hilarious and loud, sometimes messy, (most of the time messy), sometimes filled with faith and understanding, sometimes dark and dreary, sometimes sleep deprived (wait did I say that already?!?), sometimes filled with song, sometimes filled with sorrow, but often filled with joy and thankfully grace.

Saturday evening after tucking the boys into bed we sat on the couch with Maya and a couple glasses of Martinelli's and clanked our drinks together holding Maya and relaxing together.  Maya, as she often does fell asleep in my arms and began to dream and I whispered her name and she smiled.  We put her to bed and said goodnight.  A couple hours later I checked on our sweet Maya baby who had taken her last breath and slipped peacefully into eternity in the early hours of the sabbath.

Nate and I held our sweet girl and wept...

and wept...

and wept.

Marianne (our angel nurse and dear friend) joined us in those early hours.  We woke the boys up and they each gave their sweet Maya baby one last kiss and said goodnight.

I wrapped her in her soft pink blankey and I watched as Nate walked her out with the funeral director under an umbrella into the rainy night. It will be hard to forget what that feels like.

We just love our Maya baby so much.  Oh how thankful we are for the lifetime of love we fit into six months.

Many of you did not have the opportunity to meet Maya in person and so I leave you with this little video:

Meet Maya video click here


So much love, until next time.