Crocodiles and Honey Honey

This video was taken about a year and a half ago. Kerrigan had just learned "5 Little Monkeys Swingin in the Tree," and "Mamma Mia!" was her favorite movie. She was feeling a little goofy one afternoon, so she decided to act out the monkeys in the tree for me. I even got a little performance of her favorite song, "Honey, Honey."

Dada Ucky

This is one of my favorite videos of Kerrigan. It was taken when we were teaching her how to make animal noises. I love it because, in addition to her animal noises and revelation that Dada is "ucky," it shows how much of a goober she could be, with her dancing and singing to herself. To me, it's the essence of what made her such a special little girl. She's about 20 months old in this video. She was always so good at making animal noises and knew about 20 animals by the time she was two. Another thing...you'll hear her call me "Nonny;" for the longest time she would never call me "Mommy." It was always "Nonny" until she was about 2-1/2.

A Tribute Video

Anyone who came to Kerrigan's viewing or service was able to see this video. For those of you who weren't able to attend, I thought I would post it. It's one of my favorite things to watch, even though I never make it more than a quarter of the way through without crying. We included our favorite pictures and songs from two of Kerrigan's favorite shows, "Mamma Mia!" and "Glee."

His Hand in All Things

I am sitting here, watching Jasper sleeping on the couch and thinking about some conversations I've had with Brandon and our families lately. As we were looking back on the past few years, it was never truly clear how much Heavenly Father's hand had touched our lives. But, they say that hindsight's 20/20, and I couldn't agree more.

Once Brandon and I decided we were ready to start a family, it took a lot of patience, doctor's appointments, and some medical intervention. We knew our strength was being tested, as well as our true desire to be parents. Heavenly Father knew he was sending us one of the choicest of his little spirits, and wanted to be absolutely sure that we would take care of his sweet little girl. I'd like to think that, because Brandon and I both knew that Kerrigan wouldn't be with us for long, that her health problems were given to her as a way to prepare us through the years. To lose a perfectly healthy child to the circumstances that Kerrigan succumbed to would have been an enormous shock. However, to us, having spent many sleepless nights listening to her cough and watching her fighting to breathe, spending too many hours in the ER, being in and out of the pediatrician's office on a regular basis, her loss didn't come as as much of a shock as it could have. To know that she went quickly, peacefully, and without a struggle is one of the greatest blessings that a parent can receive. If we had to watch her suffer through a debillitating illness would have been entirely too much pain. Not that any aspect of losing a child is painless...I'm just grateful that our Heavenly Father showed his mercy to our family and had things play out the way that they did.

We can also see His hand in the progression of our family. We had never planned for Kerrigan to be an only child and had decided that, if we were meant to have another child, the time would come and we would do nothing to impede it. However, we never expected it to take upwards of four years for the newest addition to our familiy to come along. But, we know now that our Heavenly Father took it upon himself to allow us four wonderful years with Kerrigan all to ourselves. We didn't have to dedicate our time to any other children; our entire world was able to revolve around her. She is such a special spirit, and I'm eternally grateful that we got those four years during which we could give her our undivided attention and undying love. Jasper was sent to us in our time of grieving to be a light in our lives and another reason for living. There are times when things seem like such a cliche. For instance, during my labor with Jasper, instead of focusing on the wonderful life that was preparing to make his entrance to the world, I was looking at brochures for headstones and memorials. Instead of being able to bring Kerrigan to the hospital to visit her baby brother, she watched over him through the photograph we had placed in Jasper's bassinet. In some ways, it felt like the end meeting the beginning...death making way for life.

There is no way to replace our beautiful daughter and the presence that she always brought to our lives, but we can feel her presence in our home. On the day that Jasper was born, I had one of the strongest manifestations of this. I have a metronome that sits on my piano between my picture frames. I never use it, but Kerrigan loved to play with it! I had gone to take a shower, and when I came back into the bedroom, I could hear a "tick, tick, tick, tick" coming from the living room. I immediately recognized it as my metronome. Now, for those of you who are familiar with a metronome, you know that it has to be manually started. Mine has a small niche that the pendulum fits into in order to stop the metronome, and the pendulum has to be pushed down and released in order to start it again. There is absolutely no way that it could have started by itself. But, there it was, ticking away, with no one else in the house. I don't know if she was letting me know that she's still here, or letting me know that the time for Jasper to come was getting closer, but I will forever be grateful for the faithful ticking of my metronome and for the precious little spirit that's running around my house.

Finding Treasures

I was given a printout of a talk...I don't know who it was by, nor can I remember who gave it to me. However, it included a lot of information that was helpful and comforting. What I have found is that most information out there for grieving parents deals with either miscarriage, stillbirth, or those who have lost an infant to SIDS. There really isn't a whole lot for parents who have lost a child who is older. This talk contained some experiences from parents who have lost teenagers, and relayed one experience that I found particularly moving. It's relayed by the author, who has made a living drawing portraits of those who have passed on. He/she writes:

"One day I was drawing a picture of a young man who died suddenly in an auto accident, and I was thinking about a conversation I'd had with a mother of a sixteen year old girl who had passed away. She told me that one of the hardest things to deal with were the reminders of her daughter that would come up unexpectantly. She said it was like having the rug pulled out from under her, and would often result in heartache and tears. As I was thinking about that, it was as though this young man's spirit read my thoughts and then said, 'Please tell my moom and dad that when that happens, not to cry, because it means I'm close by. Tell them to talk to me instead, because I'm there.' The message was so clear and almost pleading. It made me realize that they have a desire to be a part of our lives and to continue the loving relationships they enjoyed on Earth. Yet, if we feel sadness and pain every time they try to make us aware of their presence, they would be hesitant to do so. I believe we can actually encourage the continuation of that association by seeing those occasinos as sweet experiences of interaction, and I've since tried to share this with everyone I know who has lost a loved one."

I found this to be very uplifting; simply thinking that Kerrigan is near every time I find some random thing of hers certainly helps. There have been so many random things that make me break down. The worst one, by far, was when I was cleaning out the fridge a couple weeks after Thanksgiving. Throwing away her hot dogs, yogurt, and caramel sauce from McDonald's apple dippers was one of the hardest things that I've done. You wouldn't think that throwing out some old food would be so detrimental, but I found myself sobbing on the kitchen floor for about fifteen minutes, all the while with the fridge door wide open. But I've really tried to take this author's advice to heart. I tell Kerrigan, "Thank you," for every time I find something of hers randomly lying about the house. On Sunday, as I put on my leather coat to get ready to leave church, I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out her favorite purple polka-dotted hair bow. As the tears started to come to my eyes, I silently gave thanks and told her that I loved her and that I was glad she was still nearby. The other day, as I was vacuuming, I lifted up my armchair and found her little drawing pad that my mom always kept in her purse. Again, I told her thank you and let her know how much I love and miss her. The same thing with finding her toothbrush on the floor of Brandon's closet, the stickers from her McDonald's Halloween bucket, her Princess and the Frog sticker sheet that she had shoved in my junk drawer, and the numerous single socks that had somehow found their way under my bed. I know there will be so many more instances to come where her things will pop up, and I know that I'll be grateful for each and every one, as it means my precious little girl is still around.

Heavenly Messengers

I recently came across an article published in the "Liahona" and written by Dale C. Mouritsen. In it, he relays a story originally told by President Heber J. Grant. I found it to be very spiritual and fitting to Kerrigan's passing.

We have a right, then, to understand the true nature of our existence. We also have a responsibility to search it out, for the more aware we become that the spirit world is a real extension of our mortal existence, the less likely we are to fasten our hearts on the treasures of this world.

One of the most beautiful stories in our heritage, an experience of President Heber J. Grant’s, bears witness that a testimony about the right relationship between life, death, and the spirit world can comfort us in times of sorrow, help us understand God’s purposes, and teach us the true nature of our existence. President Grant writes:

“I have been blessed with only two sons. One of them died at five years of age and the other at seven. My last son died of a hip disease. I had built great hopes that he would live to spread the Gospel at home and abroad and be an honor to me. About an hour before he died I had a dream that his mother, who was dead, came for him, and that she brought with her a messenger, and she told his messenger to take the boy while I was asleep; and in the dream I thought I awoke and I seized my son and fought for him and finally succeeded in getting him away from the messenger who had come to take him, and in so doing I dreamed that I stumbled and fell upon him.

“I dreamed that I fell upon his sore hip, and the terrible cries and anguish of the child drove me nearly wild. I could not stand it and I jumped up and ran out of the house so as not to hear his distress. I dreamed that after running out of the house I met Brother Joseph E. Taylor and told him of these things.

“He said: ‘Heber, do you know what I would do if my wife came for one of her children—I would not struggle to keep that child; I would not oppose her taking that child away. If a mother who had been faithful had passed beyond the veil, she would know of the suffering and the anguish her child may have to suffer; she would know whether that child might go through life as a cripple and whether it would be better or wiser for that child to be relieved from the torture of life; and when you stop to think, Brother Grant, that the mother of that boy went down into the shadow of death to give him life, she is the one who ought to have the right to take him or keep him.’

“I said, ‘I believe you are right, Brother Taylor, and if she comes again, she shall have the boy without any protest on my part.’

“After coming to that conclusion, I was waked by my brother, B. F. Grant, who was staying that night with us, helping to watch over the sick boy. He called me into the room and told me that my child was dying. I went in the front room and sat down. There was a vacant chair between me and my wife who is now living, and I felt the presence of that boy’s deceased mother, sitting in that chair. I did not tell anybody what I felt, but I turned to my living wife and said: ‘Do you feel anything strange?’ She said: ‘Yes, I feel assured that Heber’s mother is sitting between us, waiting to take him away."

“Now, I am naturally, I believe, a sympathetic man. I was raised as an only child, with all the affection that a mother could lavish upon a boy. I believe that I am naturally affectionate and sympathetic and that I shed tears for my friends—tears of joy for their success and tears of sorrow for their misfortunes. But I sat by the deathbed of my little boy and saw him die, without shedding a tear. My living wife, my brother, and I, upon that occasion experienced a sweet, peaceful, and heavenly influence in my home, as great as I have ever experienced in my life.”

The reason I found this so fitting is because of what Kerrigan told Brandon the night before she passed. She was notorious for seeing "monsters" in her closet, and Brandon was always so good at scaring them away. When he was up with her that night, she claimed that she saw ghosts in her closet. Now, this was the first time she'd ever mentioned ghosts. Later, Brandon felt that he should have asked her what the ghosts looked like. We now have no doubt in our minds that her Great-grandpa Strom and Great-grandpa Richardson were there to guide her home. She always thought of herself as a cowgirl, so it was only fitting that the cowboys in our family would be sent to bring her back.

We've also thought "What if we'd brought her up to our room to sleep?" "What if I'd stayed up a little longer with her and read her that last story that she asked for?" "What if we'd checked on her an hour earlier?" As hard as it is to admit, we know that none of these would've made a difference. Her "messengers" would have come to take her anyway because Heavenly Father had decided that it was time for her to go home. Like President Grant said "If a mother who had been faithful had passed beyond the veil, she would know of the suffering and the anguish her child may have to suffer; she would know whether that child might go through life as a cripple and whether it would be better or wiser for that child to be relieved from the torture of life..." Granted, it was not her mother who called her home...it was her Heavenly Father who sent her grandpas to be her messengers. Heavenly Father knew the suffering that she went through with her asthma, and he knew if she would have suffered more had she stayed on this earth any longer than he allowed her. We, as her earthly parents, could never know the extent of her health problems and what could have plagued her in the future. She was released from those bonds before they could become crippling or take an even more adverse effect on her daily life. We are thankful for this small miracle, even though this miracle lead to us losing our little miracle girl...someday I hope to be able to look back and thank Heavenly Father for this small wonder.