Dove's Eyes

The night Ella passed, I woke up at 11 p.m. and noticed she was gone. I knew right away because I had fallen asleep at  6 p.m. with intentions of taking a short nap, she had let me sleep too long. Drew had brought down the futon mattress from upstairs so he and the girls were asleep on the floor right next to Ella and I, we were on the couch. After I woke up I yelled to Drew to come over and we started sobbing. One of our motto's throughout Ella's life was "if she is at peace then we are at peace" and she was. We reminded ourselves of that over and over. At this point it was too quiet for me and I needed music or something, anything. Drew put in Misty Edwards and we listened to it over and over again all morning, it is one of our favorites. While it was playing we woke up the girls, not an easy task, and wanted them to be a part of our "goodbyes." They both cried with us and had their turns at holding her and kissing her and loving her, as usual. During this time my sister Ana had come over too. We all talked about how amazing she was and how perfect she was and all the things we would miss about her. I personally was in love with her long dark hair. I believed that it was going to stay that dark. I also was very fond of her cheeks, I loooove cheeks. She looked exactly like her older sister Nadia did at that age. The best part about the whole thing is Ella passed while she was in her favorite place, my arms. She was mommy's girl and was always the most comfortable and the most at peace in my arms. Also, the fact that we were all together in the room was nice too. Ella never suffered, she was in exactly the same position as when she fell asleep. As we relived her every moment and got to love on her for the last time, Misty Edwards played over and over and over in the background. Every time Dove's Eyes came on I think I cried a little harder, the song really touched me that night/morning. I will forever remember this song as Ella's song. I was recently informed by a friend that the dove's eyes can only focus one thing at a time. How beautiful! Upon learning this it set my mind in whirlwind of deep thought. I want dove's eyes! I want my gaze to start in my eyes, and end on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith- Heb. 12:2. I am forever thankful for Ella and for the place she has left me at. The dove is also the symbol of peace, and Ella was always at peace. No matter what diagnosis was thrown at her or how many looks of sympathy she got, she was always at peace. We lived in that peace with her. We refuse to talk about her as if she was just "another one of those kids." She will not be remembered by her diagnosis, she will be remembered by us as our perfect child. We never saw her as anything less than perfect, and we never treated her any different than our other two children. Unconditional love is all we had for her. In our hearts we believed she was going to be with us forever, but that was not the case. And we are at peace knowing that she is in the arms of Jesus and when we see her again she will be perfect, more perfect than when we saw her, if that is possible.