On a beautiful day that fall, they picked me up from my office downtown and we headed to the courthouse to get remarried. Our family was reunited, and my husband’s wish had finally come true … I WAS GOING HOME!

Things were going well, and we immediately started trying to have another baby. We built a house in not far from mom and dad and His business was flourishing. He wanted me to quit work and come home full-time so that I could finally get some rest and focus on our family, which I did not object to at all! We were happily anticipating that I would soon become pregnant and finally give Christian the sibling he so much wanted.

But you see, that wasn’t quite the case. After the first six months of trying to conceive we began to worry, but doctors said that we shouldn’t be too concerned until we reached the year mark. That year came and went and so did the next. All the while we’d been undergoing treatments with a fertility specialist in Plano and finally, after years of anxiously waiting, I became pregnant in September of 2003. Our daughter was due to be born on my husband’s birthday the following June. Earlier that summer, we’d begun construction of a new home, closed on it two days after Christmas, and began moving in the first week of January 2004. I was overwhelmed with the joy of our impending arrival and things couldn’t have been looking brighter. The years of longing for the baby I so much wanted were all behind me and my dreams were coming to fruition. I just knew that God had special plans for our family, especially given what we had all walked through to get where we were going. If only we had known.

WALK ON

And love, it’s not the easy thing. The only baggage that you can bring, not the easy thing. The only baggage you can bring, is all that you can’t leave behind. And if the darkness is to keep us apart, and if the daylight feels like it’s a long way off, and if your glass heart should crack before the second you turn back … Oh no, be strong.  Walk on. Walk on. What you got, they can’t steal it, no they can’t even feel it. You’re packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been – A place that has to be believed to be seen. You could have flown away, a singing bird in an open cage who will only fly, only fly for freedom.  What you got you can’t deny it, can’t sell it or buy it – Walk on. Walk On. You stay safe tonight. And I know it aches, how your heart it breaks, you can only take so much. Home, hard to know what it is if you never had one. Home, I can’t say where it is, but I know I’m going. Home, that’s where the heart is. Leave it behind. You’ve got to leave it behind.  All that you fashion, all that you make, all that you build, all that you break. All that you measure, all that you feel, all this you can leave behind. All that you reason, all that you care, it’s only time and I’ll never fill up all my mind. All that you sense, all that you scheme, all you dress up, and all that you see. All you create … all that you wreck … all that you hate … leave it behind. Walk on! {U2}