from my daughter

My 11 year old daughter, Shayna wrote a beautiful essay that I wanted to share.  She was given the assignment "beauty is..." and she decided to write about her brother.  She wrote of her memories and even went to his website to copy some of her favorite photos (the ones she has framed in her room).  This assignment brought about a lot of tears and I had the opportunity to have some really good and healing conversations with her.  She finished it last night and with an equal amount of pride and fear in her eyes, asked me to read it.  She was so proud of her work and yet scared that it would make Mommy cry.  She hates to see me cry.  I managed to hold myself together and tell her what an amazing job she did.  I am one lucky mommy.  See for yourself:

Beauty Is….
In my eyes, beauty is my baby brother who passed away almost a year and a half ago because he was an angel on Earth. On March 5, 2008 Nathan Ryan Larson was born in CHLA (Children’s Hospital Los Angeles). Sadly, he was born with a heart problem. He was missing a lot of parts in his heart area. Good news came when they discovered that he had a lot of those parts but they were extremely small. As soon as he came out, the doctors put him on a breathing tube and an oxygen tube that went into his nostrils and a bunch of other tubes and IV’s. Four days after Nathan was born, they operated on him. When he came out, he had a scar across his stomach (My mom said that it would get smaller as he grew bigger). When I came to visit to him, he always had a ton of tubes and IVs in him. I hated to see him suffer and all I wanted was to have him get better and come home. Miserably, he never made it to that point in his short life.

Things were starting to look up when the doctors took off the breathing tube, but it turned out he needed it so they put it back on. He had a couple of good days so they tried again to take off his breathing tube. It was off for a day and then put back on again couple days later, they tried one more time and it was never put back on, and the best part was that I got to watch them take it off. Nathan had a good week and they decided to transport him to CHOC. This would be more convenient for us because then we wouldn’t have to drive very far. CHOC was a lot cleaner and it didn’t look much like a hospital. The only thing bad was that the doctors were not as good and CHLA’s were trained better. Nathan was transported in a helicopter with my dad. When he got there he had a week that was all uphill. One day, I was with my mom and the nurse let us give him a “bath”. This was really a rubdown with a cloth and warm water. He was screaming the whole time. After his “bath”, I got to sit down and hold him. This was my third time. As soon as he was in my arms, Nathan stopped screaming and looked up at me with such admiration, I had to giggle a little bit. Two days later, my mom brought an outfit and asked the doctors if she could put it on him. By this time, almost all of his tubes and IV’s were gone, and he was so close to looking like a normal baby. Nathan wore that outfit all day and my mom got plenty of pictures of him and I’m sure glad she did. I got to hold him one last time that day and he looked up at me and looked like he wanted to say something to me, his oldest sister. I held his hand and he wrapped his fingers around my finger and made some noises. I’m pretty sure that they were meant to say, “I love you”. Beauty all around.

The next day was kind of a blur to me, but I’ll do my best to tell you what happened. My mom was going to try to breast feed him and the next thing I knew, my dad was paged to come immediately to her side. He pulled me aside and took my hands and prayed with me. Suddenly, everyone who was close to us like friends and family came to stay with my siblings and I, who had no idea what was happening. It was the longest two hours in my life and I still cry when I think about that day. Finally, we met them in the hall and they broke the news: Nathan Ryan Larson, my baby brother, only 25 days old died. Even though he had all those tubes and he was on lots of medications, he is still my brother and the most beautiful thing that had ever graced this planet. To many people, a sick baby with tubes, IV’s and scars all over him may not be beautiful on the outside, but if I learned anything from Nathan, it’s that you shouldn’t judge people by what they look like, but what matters on the inside. He is now an angel in heaven where he is wanted most by ones who love him more than you can ever imagine. Beauty was always surrounding him and you would take one look at him and know that love was all that mattered in this world.