September 2004 - Hannah Grace Keeton

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September 2004

09/14/2004

I apologize for taking so long to send an update, I know you all understand though. I’ve received an exuberant amount of emails asking me to let you know how we are doing. Many of you have told me how first thing in the morning and last thing at night you checked your email to find out how Hannah was doing. You’ve shared with me the love you had for her even though you’d never met her. When you take the time to tell me how Hannah changed your life it makes me thankful. I appreciate all your kind words, emails and cards expressing how our little Princess made a difference in your lives. Thank you for taking the time.

Honestly ... things are not going well. We miss Hannah terribly. Everyday seems to get a little worse. We never dreamed life could bring such horrendous pain. I would give anything to feel Hannah's little arms around my neck again. I need to hold her and touch her again. I need to hear her little voice tell me she loves me. I wish I could wake up tomorrow morning to a kiss on my cheek and a sweet "Good Morning Mommy" whisper ... moving over so she and I could snuggle up before starting our day.

Night time is the hardest for me. Our nightly rituals of trying to get her home from Papa’s so we could do homework (and her asking for just 5 more minutes) ... then bath time and more snuggling. I wish I could watch her bow her head and fold her hands together and pray before going to sleep. My heart aches for my angel so much sometimes that I wish I was with her.

I hold her favorite stuffed animals throughout the day and sleep with the blanket that was on her bed when she died. My heart hurts, physically. I feel like I can't breathe sometimes. My stomach and head hurts all the time. The pain is constand and if I’m not crying, I’m sleeping. I’ve withdrawn from everyone and everything. It’s just too hard and too much of an effort to try and do anything else. I seem to be exhausted all the time and it’s not from working too hard. My house is a mess and I need to take care of so many things that I’m ashamed of myself. It seems I’m paralyzed with grief. I miss her terribly. I want her to come home and be with us, where she was loved so very, very much.

Hannah was my whole life. I lived my life through Hannah. Now that she isn't here I'm an empty shell. I gladly gave up so much to see her through her battle with cancer. I ask myself all the time where I went wrong ... what I could and should have done different. IF only I could do it over again ... I would do so many things different! Hannah should have beat her cancer, I feel it in my heart and soul.

Many of you will criticize me for feeling this way, but I honestly don't believe God got this one right. Hannah deserved to live, she should be here, she should have received her "miracle". She should be here rejoicing and giving all the glory to God! She was a monumental testament to thousands of people she never met. She brought change to hundreds of peoples lives just by being the precious little girl she was. She could have done so much more had she lived! I will always believe that, and always wonder why she didn’t.

When I pray real hard God does give me peace ... sometimes. I know that God loves her more than we ever could, and I know that we will never know why he made the decision he did, and through it all I will always trust and believe he knew what was best for our special angel, but just this once I wish he would have made an exception and answered HANNAH’S prayer and brought healing to her life. She wanted to live so much, she wasn’t ready to die. She looked to me as her main care giver and trusted that I would make sure she lived.

We have made some attempts to do "normal" things. We’ve been to Wal-Mart twice to do some shopping and both times I thought Terry and I were going to have a nervous breakdown. The first time we had to run out of the store. Terry was brave enough to take several nice medical backpacks to school for the needy children and came home and cried the rest of the day. He said he seen Hannah running and skipping down the halls and playing with her friends and smiling that huge smile of hers! Loving life, always loving every minute of life. Everything is an awful reminder Hannah isn't here.

Terry’s dad and I talk about Hannah constantly. I look forward to seeing him because that’s all we do is talk about our princess. Of course Terry and Lisa talk about Hannah too, but we also talk about other things. I find talking about her keeps her "alive" in someway.

I feel so sorry for Papa ... he is truly a lost soul without her. He takes the opportunity to tell us that he’s ready to go and be with her. He’s 84 and lived his life and reminds us that he has an "edge" on us. When he cries it’s from way down deep and it breaks my heart. He too lived for Hannah Grace. He woke every morning and went to bed every night for her. His life was complete because she was a part of his. Because Hannah completely filled his life he never bothered to have a life outside of his home. He lives alone and his other children work so he spends a lot of time by himself now.

Today Terry took Hannah’s Snoopy bank and wallet from Papa’s and the Cinderella bank from our house to the bank. There was NO way I could have done it. Hannah opened her savings account two years ago and every month she earned $10.00 in allowance. Papa always made sure there was $20.00 in there instead though. The Snoopy bank was kept at Papa’s house for all his change and the Cinderella bank was kept here for all Terry’s change. Every month, without fail, Hannah would take Snoopy and Cinderella and her wallet to the bank. She would walk in so proud and smile her huge smile at Debbie and Linda (the tellers) and wait until they were done counting her money. She’d hand them her savings book then fill out her own deposit slip herself. It took forever, but she was determined. Every month she would watch her total grow and I wish I could tell you how proud she was of herself. The only time she ever took any money out of her account was in July of 2003 when she donated $10.00 to Children’s Miracle Network. No one has been to the bank for the past three months ... no four months now, so her banks were so heavy they were hard to carry. When Terry walked in the bank the teller saw Snoopy and Cinderella and started crying and Terry had to leave it for her to do later.

The last 3 months before Hannah died we were in the hospital except for one week. During that one week I brought carloads of stuff home and never touched it because just as I was finding time to get to it we had to take Hannah back. Then after Hannah died there was another car load of things to unload. There was so much stuff in the kitchen, but I couldn’t bring myself to touch any of it. After two weeks I decided I needed to tackle some of it and started doing her laundry. Of how awful! That hurt me so much. I lovingly folded each piece of her clothes and realized that I would never buy her another soft sweater or pink pants with matching shoes again. Her pink fluffy slippers were sitting by the door and everything I brought home from the hospital HAD to be washed and very, very clean. I didn’t want any part of that place in my home or near Hannah again. I remember picking up her pink slippers and holding them to my chest and sobbing like I’ve never sobbed before. It was during that "cry" that a song popped into my head, and I knew it was Hannah talking to me. I went and found the CD and played the song "There You’ll Be" by Faith Hill. Either I had cried so many tears that there were none left or it brought some sort of comfort because after that I stopped sobbing and softly cried while thanking Hannah for communicating with me.

So many things happened the night she died. Either Terry or Lisa or I was with Hannah ... always. We never left her alone for a minute, for two reasons ... if she died I wanted to be right there with her, holding her little hand and two, because I thought she would wait until we weren’t with her to die. That night Pastors Ron and Jeanne Marie had come up and it was late ... around 10:30 p.m. They stayed and prayed with us and left around 11:00 p.m. Terry’s oldest sister Carol insisted on being there with us that night. Just after the pastors left, Terry and Lisa decided to go down to the cafeteria to get everyone something to drink. I had stood on my feet all day because there had been non stop visitors coming to pray with us for Hannah. Carol and I were standing by Hannah’s bedside when I asked her if she minded staying by her bedside while I sat down for a few minutes. I had gotten some pictures developed from Wal-Mart and had just sat down to look at them when I noticed her nurse coming in to check on Hannah. A minute later a male nurse I didn’t recognize came in and I seen him reach over Hannah and push a red button. Then both nurses were talking about PVC’s ... both were calm. I was looking at the pictures still when I had this "pressure" overcome me and in slow motion I remember putting the pictures down and asking them what a PVC was. They didn’t answer me ... they were concentrating on reading the monitor. I was slowly getting up (I knew something was wrong) asking them if Hannah was alright. Again they didn’t answer me. I was only a couple of steps to the side of her bed when I raised my voice and asked them if Hannah was breathing! The male nurse said, "No" and I looked over at Carol...she had stepped back from Hannah’s bed. A resident doctor came in that I recognized but had never met and I knew Hannah was in MAJOR trouble. He reached his hand out to introduce himself to me and I yelled at him to never mind the introductions but to help my baby! It was all happening so fast, yet all in slow motion. Someone else came in her room ... I was asking someone to tell me if Hannah was alive! Terry and Lisa weren’t there and the doctor said to call them immediately! I reached for the cell phone and dialed the number and told Carol to get him up here Now! I yelled at the resident doctor to start pushing on Hannah’s chest and he did until another doctor came in the room. He was a cardiac fellow who was on that night and he came in to assist. He told the other doctor to stop performing chest compressions and told me that there was nothing he could do for Hannah because she was receiving more Epi than he would give her. I yelled and grabbed the resident doctor’s hands and told him not to listen to that idiot and to start chest compressions again!! The cardiac doctor said to me, "Do you really want to do this? Do you really?". I said YES and to start NOW! The crash team came in and with them was a fellow doctor that I knew and who had taken care of Hannah many times. He was so sad and sincere when he looked at me and asked me if I was sure I wanted to do this. Because I didn’t know what a PVC was and no one would tell me what the hell was happening I didn’t know that it was her heart and that it had stopped beating. I couldn’t watch them work on her ... it was too much and just as I was about to collapse Terry and Lisa came in. Terry grabbed me and held me while they worked on Hannah. Neither one of us could watch, just listening was so awful! I kept trying to explain why I allowed them to "work" on her because he had already said no to chest compressions a few days before. They tried to bring her back with the shock paddle machine but with no drugs it didn’t work. Nothing worked. My Hannah Grace had died .... as did a large part of myself.

When all the medical team walked out of the room and we walked in to be with Hannah I gasped! They had deflated her bed to work on her and hadn’t reinflated it and when I seen Hannah laying on a board with fluids coming out of her nose and mouth I wanted to die. I looked over at the cardiac doctor and screamed at him to inflate her bed! Then I yelled at her nurse to get me something to clean her up with. Then I told them all to get out of her room, shut the door, pull the curtain and to leave us alone with her. I laid over her and sobbed that I was so sorry. I must have told her a million times how sorry I was. I was crying and screaming and nothing could console me. I moved away from her a little so Terry and Lisa could have their time with her. I decided to hold her little body in my arms ... something I had wanted to do since she went into respiratory failure four weeks before. I was so upset and wanted every tube and needle out of her body. I gently took her breathing tube and NG tube out and her head was free. I couldn’t hold her though with all the other tubes and needles and one by one I started taking them out and threw them at the wall where they landed in the floor. She was free of everything that was attached to her and I was relieved. Through it all I was sobbing and Terry, Lisa and Carol watched me in disbelief. Lisa couldn’t take it, she was afraid that me taking all the equipment off Hannah was "bizarre" and decided it was time to go. She and Carol left together and I was so glad Carol had insisted on staying with us. I told Terry to go with them because I didn’t intend to leave Hannah for a while. He insisted on staying with me. I snuggled with Hannah as best as I could. I held her and cried and kept begging her to forgive me. I know she didn’t feel anything the doctors did trying to revive her because she was already gone ... but still I hurt so bad because what they done to try and save her was so harsh and cruel. If only Terry had been there. I hugged her tighter and tighter and talked to her and sang to her and thanked her for being the most precious angel face a mother could ever hope for. I thanked her for seven remarkable years and I thanked her for changing my life and making me a better person.

I begged her to come to me, even if in my dreams. I told her every time I seen a yellow butterfly I would know it came from her. I told her to enjoy her life in heaven with Jesus, the angels and all the other children already there. I told her to give her grandmothers a hug and kiss from her mommy and daddy. I told her how proud of her I was for being such a brave little warrior and then I asked her to forgive me for not doing more to help her "live".

All this time Terry was packing and loading the van. Later he came to me and told me it was time to go ... but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to. It felt SO good to be so close to her and I didn’t care and it didn’t matter that she was turning blue and getting cold. I had wrapped her in blankets and was using my body to keep her warm. He agreed and went and sat down. An hour or so later he came over and told me again that it was time to go ... but I couldn’t. I was calm, had stopped crying and found myself "relaxing" with her. I wasn’t about to leave. I heard Terry tell Hannah while he rubbed her head "to send us some comfort" and "to send Mommy comfort so she can leave your side baby girl". He went and sat back down and about five minutes later while I’m still holding Hannah I asked him to turn up her music. I could clearly hear it and recognized the CD as one of Hannah and I’s favorites. I was so relaxed and calm and hearing our music just added to the serenity in her room. Terry came over to me and asked me what I wanted (he hadn’t heard me I guess). I told him to turn up her music and he looked puzzled. I asked him if he heard the music and he paused for a minute and smiled and said yes, he too heard it ... faintly but he knew exactly what CD was playing. I continued holding Hannah and singing to her and Terry came back over and told me to look at Hannah’s CD player ... it was unplugged. I told him to look outside her room, maybe her nurse had turned it on for us. He looked outside her room, and looked inside the room next to hers. There was no music playing anywhere and that particular CD was in her CD player which was unplugged. I knew it was a gift from either Hannah or God. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me. Terry heard the music for the next hour or so but I continued hearing it until I left Hannah ... three hours later.

When Terry came to tell me it was time to go again I got up. I knew that it was ok to leave my princess. I thanked Hannah and God and her room was so still and peaceful. When I got up her nurse came in and I told her I wanted to bathe Hannah. She told me ok at first, then came back in a few minutes later and told me no that she and a few other nurses would do it. I insisted on doing it for Hannah myself and Terry insisted that we leave and let the nurses. I was looking at Hannah’s body and her legs had these huge water pockets on them from all the fluid she had retained. Then the water pockets started popping up in other parts of her body and I knew that’s what the nurse didn’t want me to see. I assured her it would be fine, I could handle it. Then I asked her what would happen after Hannah got her bath ... not really wanting to know the answer ... but my motherly instincts won out. She told me they would have to wrap her body because of the fluid pockets and then they would put her in a bag and take her to the morgue. At that time Terry was pushing me out the door ... he didn’t want me to partake in any of that. After all the wonderful time I had just spent with her I guess it would have "ruined" it from Terry’s perspective. But I wish now I had of.

And I wish more than anything that I had dressed her in the clothes that I gave the funeral director. I wanted to dress her in her pink gown and pink bathrobe. I wanted to put her favorite Cinderella panties on her and tuck her little doll she played with as a baby under her arm. I wanted to make sure she had her favorite Princess blanket covering the lower half of her body. I wanted her to rest on a Princess pillowcase that had her name on it. I wanted to put her little pearl bracelet on her wrist and put her pearl earrings in her ears. I wanted to put her silver cross necklace around her neck and more than anything I wanted to make sure that bag was unzipped around her face. I wasn’t allowed to do any of that. The funeral director assured me she took care of everything just as I had requested and I believe that she did. She was so heartbroken when Terry and I were making the arrangements that she had to excuse herself to go and cry. She told us she didn’t have children of her own but that had she had any she would have wanted her little girl to be just like Hannah. Even in death Hannah was still touching lives.

After this LENGTHY explanation I guess you understand now how I know Hannah is communicating with me through music. I’m so grateful. I made sure that my children were raised understanding the gift that music brings to a soul. I’m glad I accomplished this and that we can all share in that gift now. Hannah and I had made plans to start piano lessons next spring together ...

There have been other instances where I KNOW Hannah was with me. Terry and Lisa have experienced these times also. It’s odd but the three of us have all said we have seen Hannah dancing in circles and laughing out loud with a pretty dress on with her long blonde curly hair blowing in the wind. We’ve all seen her doing this at times when we weren’t together. Terry’s dad told me about his vision and how it has helped him with his grief so much ... and it was the same vision his daughter Rita had too. Thank you Hannah Grace.

My memories are always so exceptionally clear of Hannah. They are always when she was healthy ... it’s so odd but it seems as if the last 15 months of her life never existed. Terry, Lisa and Terry’s dad all say the same thing too. I thank God for those memories ... they are so precious and so important. Hannah loved life and loved living it to the fullest everyday. She brought sunshine wherever she went and that sunshine overflowed to everyone who knew her. Hannah lived a magnificent life in her short seven years, so I would expect the loss of her life would be nothing short of magnificent as well. I’m overwhelmed by the graciousness and courage of such a unique little girl ... and ... more than anything I thank God for entrusting her life to Terry and I.

Remember Puff Daddy? The fish that Hannah was obsessed with at Children’s Hospital ... the fish that everyone who visited her had to go see ... even when she was incredibly sick and on her way to PICU? Before Terry and I left Hannah that night Terry told me to look at Hannah’s lips, I hadn’t seen them from a standing position. I couldn’t believe it, it was uncanny and we were so touched ... it was so personal that I could never make anyone understand how much it meant to us ... but Hannah died with her lips closed and her lips were in a straight line ...except the ends of her lips were curled up ... sort of like a smile ... exactly like Puff Daddy’s lips.

Life does go on and sometimes it doesn’t seem right ... nothing will ever seem right again I guess. I’m so thankful that both Brian and Lisa haven’t let it paralyze them as Terry, his dad and I have. Brian deals with it by "not dealing with it" and Lisa is trying to pick up the pieces as best as she can. She’s in school taking a full load again this year. She auditioned and got the lead role in a play again this semester. She’s trying to be excited about it, I wish we could all join her in her excitement so much ... but we can’t, not just yet. She is so worried about us that she calls and comes up everyday to see us no matter what. She needs us now and I know she has times when her heart is so torn ... but thank God she’s able to bear it and try and go on. Terry and I are both living in this "surreal" world. Nothing makes any sense. Nothing matters either, nothing is important and nothing merits our attention. I’m quite concerned about Terry. He had to go to the doctor a week or so ago and called me a little after he had left the house and told me he had run out of gas! When I asked him where he was so I could go and help him he told me on 157 in Edwardsville. When I asked him what he was doing in Edwardsville instead of Troy where our doctor was he said, "Oh my gosh! I was going to Dr. Rallo’s office". We switched from Dr. Rallo to Dr. Garner 10 years ago. He is living in a fog. He has constant headaches and his vision has recently became poor. He drops things he forgets things and he says very little. His worst time is when he goes to bed. He prays and talks to Hannah and always tells her how sorry he is. He still hasn’t gone back to work. Right now the last thing he needs to do is go to work and be around machinery. He fell off a ladder yesterday and today a step stool ... lucky he didn’t get hurt really bad. We were walking the other night and he fell and went rolling down a hill. He goes to the store and calls me ten minutes later and asks me what he was supposed to get. I worry about him. He didn’t get the privilege of spending the last 15 months day in and out like I did with Hannah. He missed out on so much and I know now that it really hurts him. Because I gave up our business he had no choice, he had to work. So many regrets, so many tears and so much to yearn for.

Thank you all for everything. Please forgive me for being so lax in responding and getting back to you. I don’t mean to be rude, I’m just trying to survive.

Love, Cindi