Dear Keren

Written while flying across the Pacific, coming home for the funeral of my little granddaughter, Keren.

Dear Keren,

I first met you on a gray September afternoon six years ago. Your dad called me and said, “You have a granddaughter, Keren Elyse.” “How is she?” I asked. “She’s OK,” he said, and from the tension in his voice, I knew you were far from that.

My first glimpse of you was in the NICU of St. Joe’s, a tiny scrap of humanity stretched on a warming table, surrounded with doctors and nurses, dotted with probes, screaming bloody murder. A tiger. Those first weeks were tense but you hung on to life.

Your parents are my heroes - sweet, gentle and fiercely protective. Caring for you has never been easy but your parents are servants. Your mom comforts and soothes you and you dad, well, no task is beneath him or beyond his reach. You have been his little princess, his dance partner with him doing the steps and you the belly laughs.

I’ve learned much from you, little girl. Patience, for one. Your pushy sisters scream and yell if they are hungry, cold, or uncomfortable but you just sit and wait till someone remembers your needs. Because you couldn’t walk, you have taught me to sit still, not something I do well. Because you must be fed slowly, you have taught me that haste indeed makes waste, and things done slowly get done in due time. Because you have reached out in unconditional love to everyone around you and drawn them close, you have taught me to not be a respecter of persons.

Returning last summer after several months, your smallest sister was a little skittish of me. Your middle sister told it straight, “You’ve been gone long. It’s time you came home.” But you, my little one, just burst into sunlight grins and wrapped your arms around me. In my heart I heard you say, “Welcome home, Grammy. I knew you’d come.”

If you see me weeping, it is because I miss you, but don’t think I am sad for you. I have ached for your limitations and longed to have you tell me your thoughts. If your sisters talk too much, you were the balance, but always I knew you had much to say if you could have had words.

Yesterday I think your Heavenly Father reached down and said, “Come home, Keren. Leave that tight, stiff little body and come dance with me. I want to see you run and skip. I want you to pick flowers and hold water in your hands. I want you free.”

Your wheelchair sits in the corner. As wheelchairs go, it’s pretty slick. I love the big butterfly embroidered on the seat back in bright colors and your name, Keren - Strength, in blue.

It’s empty now. You don’t need it.