Tears to Triumph:. Dawn Marie Daniels
Dr. Sharron Herron-Williams
On a Tuesday in January, I went to a children’s boutique and bought my baby girl Whittaker the most precious white bonnet. My sister helped me select the most gorgeous white dress with delicate bows to match. Her father and I decided on a warm and elegant satin baby blanket to cover our precious gift from God. We weren’t dressing her for her baptism or a Sunday church outing. I had wished for that. Prayed on that. But God had other plans. We were dressing her for her special meeting where God had called his angel home. My baby Whittaker had lived seventeen wonderful days on this earth, and now it was time for us to celebrate what she meant to us as we prepared for her funeral services.
When she passed, I cried and cried. I remember talking to a friend days later and noticing that I hadn’t cried for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes was a long time because I had done a lot of crying, every minute of every day. I tried my prayers again; I tried to talk to God and asked him if he had a plan for me. Through my tears, I really couldn’t understand why this was happening. I told God that I didn’t know if I could take it because in six months, God had taken from me not one, but two babies. I never, ever question God, but I sure wouldn’t mind if I could have a moment of his time to clarify a thing or two. I knew there had to be a reason for this to happen, to me, to my family, and to Whittaker. But, through my tears, I just couldn’t see it. How could she live only seventeen days? And then I thought of my first pregnancy and my first child that never got to be born into this world and it was clear to me. Whittaker had a purpose.
I have prayed so many prayers. I have always prayed. But this past month was different. I had to come up with morning prayers, nighttime prayers, lunch prayers, and on-the-spot prayers. I did a lot of talking with God about my precious baby girl, Whittaker. Whittaker was an angel. She didn’t just belong to me, or her father, Will, or my mother. From the moment she came on this earth, she belonged to all of us; she was an angel that I couldn’t take credit for on my own. She was God’s angel.
For me, God made her have a purpose. Or otherwise, I was sure I wouldn’t have gotten a chance to see her, to know her, to pray over her. To love her. It was clear that she was His angel. And if there was ever a minute of doubt in my mind, I only had to look to the crowds of people from my church who gave up Sunday afternoon events to pray over baby Whittaker. In her short time on this earth, she drew crowds of people. Nurses who weren’t even assigned to her came to be with her during their shifts, before they left for home after a twelve-hour shift, and at the start of their next day. The nurses came and they prayed over our little angel. And the way they cared for my baby, you knew for sure that they felt that she was an angel, too.
My family came and we all stayed as long as we could. If someone was instructed to rest, go home, shower, or get something to eat, the person would leave the room for the amount of time that it seemed reasonable to be gone and then rush right back. My family would constantly try to get me to eat but eating wasn’t important to me. However, to oblige them, I might walk around the hospital or stare at a plate of food just to keep them from worrying.
I had been on bed rest for weeks before she was born to us. I was happy and worried at the same time, but I let my faith carry me. One doctor said that he was spiritually optimistic but clinically concerned. I told him that I wanted him to have faith in his whole being. Some may say that seventeen days was a short time on this earth, but knowing what I know, that she wasn’t predicted to be here twenty-four hours, I am grateful for every Monday, every Tuesday, and every third, fourth, and eleventh day that I had to be with her. But one Sunday, God sent a message that He would be calling on His angel soon. It wasn’t a signal or a warning sound, it was a feeling in my heart. I didn’t want to leave her side, and for thirty-six hours straight I was sitting with Whittaker, praying over her when I noticed her blood pressure begin to slip. The nurse came in and saw what I saw and then she turned to me and said, “Call your mother.”
My mother worked in the same hospital. She had been gone for only a few short hours, enough time to dress for work and come back after sitting up with me and Whittaker all night. I know it was hard on me, but I knew it was hard on my mother, too. Later, she would search for the words to console me and I would stop her and tell her that she did everything that she could because in Whittaker’s last moments as an earthbound angel, her father and mother were there.
They took Whittaker off the breathing tubes and placed her in my arms. For me, it was a pure gift to hold my baby in my arms without the tubes on her body—just holding my baby like a mother does. The nurse let me know that she had stopped breathing on her own and that it would be some time but the heartbeat would slow and slow some more and then she would be gone.
I held her and rocked her for what seemed like years in angel time, but on this earth, only thirty minutes had passed. But I loved every second that I had with her, every second. The nurse took her away and then her Neonatal Intensive Care Unit nurse, Lisa, who had been off for the weekend shift, came in and moved the shift nurse out of the way. She demanded that she get to hold her angel. My family and I waited as the medical professionals had Whittaker, and then Lisa brought my baby back to me. She had been dressed and was wearing little booties on her feet.
My family got to visit with her and the hospital was so gracious; they let me hold her as long as I needed to. Then there came a time—I won’t lie and say it was easy and graceful, it was hard—I had to stand up and walk out with my baby and hand her to the hospital staff. But nurse Lisa came in and met me. As we both held on to Whittaker, she told me she would take good care of her and I knew she would. I let my hand slip as Lisa held her; I let one arm drop away, took one step back, and then another and then another. It felt like a hundred steps of walking away and saying good-bye.
Exactly four weeks earlier I had been put on bed rest, the day after Christmas. So when my daughter was born and they sent me home with empty arms, I was heartbroken. It was tougher when I had to leave this time knowing that I would not be back to visit her in a few hours. I don’t have the words to describe the hole that was left in my heart. It’s a hole that I know will never heal and I really don’t want it to. But as I walked out, I noticed mothers and fathers going in. Some had been airlifted from rural parts of Alabama; some had driven to the hospital from far away, some as far away as the Florida line.
There were young couples, soldiers, and new mothers that looked so afraid. In my own grief I still felt for them. I lived close to the hospital where my daughter was, so I saw her every day, prayed for her every night. I didn’t have to get a hotel room or incur expenses that would keep me from being able to see my daughter. Some of the families had to make the tough financial decision to leave their child alone in the NICU for weeks, months at a time because they couldn’t afford to stay in a hotel for twenty, thirty days.
The time came to plan services for Whittaker and I thought of other families who didn’t have the brothers and sisters that I had, the good friends, the coworkers, the support that I had all to take care of one precious little angel. I was blessed. To feel any other way would be terribly ungracious of me. I had to find a resting place for my daughter and there was a cemetery near my home that I always had a reaction to. I never really knew why. Perhaps it’s because this place that I passed by almost every day would have new significance to me. I used to wonder, Why would anyone put a cemetery near houses like this?
I never thought it was so families could visit more often. I never thought I’d be one of those people who needed to go there. Long before I walked in to make arrangements, I would get a chill every time I drove by that cemetery. I never knew why until that day.
I naïvely thought that all resting places were created equal. But I was wrong. When I went there, selecting this place for my baby was, ironically, the easiest of the seemingly impossible decisions I had to make. In that beautiful little place with a lake out back was a spot for Whittaker. I didn’t want to leave my baby alone at all. But when I got there and the counselor walked me around, I found that I didn’t have to leave her by herself. There were other small mounds of raised pretty grass and other small carved stone pieces with names like “Tina,” “Julian,” “Cory,” and “Mary.” They were born in the same year and some died in one day, some two days, some made it a month or six weeks. The space seemed perfect for my little girl to be among other angels who were gone too soon.