Day 9: Lasts

This is is my ninth post in a series of seventeen.  17 days of remembering Lilly's 17 months of life as we approach her one year angelversary.

I thought a post on "lasts" would be appropriate to follow yesterday's post of "firsts."  But as I considered ideas, it seemed all I could really focus on was Lilly's last day.  I decided to go with that rather than "last day at church," "last bath," "last doctor's appointment" - even though I remember those things.


Lilly's last meal was pureed spinach with orange juice via her g-tube.  I don't have a picture of that, but here is another of her getting a meal -this was taken at the zoo (Oct. 2011):

After a meal, I had to keep Lilly upright and still for a few minutes, or the meal would come right back up.  Her favorite thing to do was to look at and feel the pages in her fuzzy animals book.  We kept it at the table:

Lilly LOVED her weekly physical therapy session and occupational therapy session.  She had her last physical therapy session on her last day and her therapist said that Lilly had done her best since her open heart surgery the past November.  I so wish I had a picture of Lilly with both of her therapists!  But here is a picture of her doing some therapy homework with me:

I took pictures of Lilly almost every day of her life because I never knew what day would be her last.  I took the last picture I have of her alive on Dec. 14, the night before she died.  She is snuggling with big sister Tabby.  She's wearing her sock monkey pjs, which I kept on her the next day because they looked so cute and comfy on her.

The last video I have of Lilly, I took and posted the morning of the day she died.  I still shake my head watching it.  Who would have suspected that day would have been her last?

Finally, the very last time I held my Lilly was after her viewing, Dec. 18.  After most everyone had gone, I just had to pick her up out of her coffin and hold her one more time.  She was cold and heavy and stiff.  But her hair still tickled me and I just held tightly.  We got our last family picture made and how crazy it is that it turned out to be one of our best.  But it isn't one that I want to enlarge and frame.  :(

What a beautiful doll baby she was.

[Jesus speaking] "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." - Revelation 22:13

On a different note, I shared with other Trisomy angel moms about Hunter crying for the first time over Lilly yesterday.  A number of the moms shared their experiences with their living children and how they grieved.  Apparently grief can be delayed in boys and in also just in younger children.  As they mature they experience the grief differently.  Today Hunter was pretending to be my pet dog.  Then he started to cry and said he was a dead dog and he insisted that I bury him.  I played along, knowing he's working things out in his mind.