I'm posting today with a heavy heart. I spent the weekend in Temple visiting family and friends, and until Sunday morning, it was a normal visit home. Good food, drinking in the driveway with my siblings, and hanging out with a best friend that I never get to see.

Sunday morning, I woke up and went downstairs to find that my mom had left the house early to go to our friend Deedee's house. Deedee is this AMAZING woman who has 7 (yes, 7) children. Two teenage boys (one is hers, the other is her husband's), an 11 yo (hers), two more who are around 7-8 (adopted foster kids), one who is about 6 (another adoptee), and an infant who is biologically hers and her husband's. All these kids are home schooled. And the four middle kids are/have been special needs kids. Three of those she adopted. ONE of those (the six year old) she "found" in a hospital like a stray cat. Her parents had basically abandoned her because of her health issues, and Deedee took her in. Without question. And the six year old was the reason my mom went over there before we got up. She got a call from Deedee's husband, Joe, that Bethany had passed away that morning.

Bethany was a beautiful child, with (according to my mom) at least FIVE "cephalies." For those of you who are not into medical terminology, cephaly means that it relates to the brain. One is bad. FIVE means that you "should" probably be dead. This little girl should not have responded to anything. She should have been a vegetable. Now, she didn't speak, but she laughed if you tickled her. She recognized her nurse's voice, and she had a preference for men over women. She also had seizures, big ones, that lasted for minutes at a time. Her obstacles were not ones that most biological parents want to deal with, and yet this woman (she wasn't married to Joe yet when the adoption took place) took her on.

I am regularly amazed by this family, who is so mixed. (In addition to having special needs, two of the adopted children are black in a white family.) They also donated all of Bethany's usable organs, in addition to her hair. And so I ask you, my 9 blog followers, please pray for this family in their time of loss. To add insult to injury, today is Deedee's birthday, and the 27th would be Bethany's. They will bury her on the 26th. SO keep them in your thoughts and in your prayers. Please.