Baby Pictures

I said yesterday that today I'd tell you a story involving Linda's little brother Jim and his lovely family. Both Jim and his wife (I will call her Debbie) were students of my husband's way back in the late '70s when he was earning his living as a teacher and coach. Actually my husband is still a teacher and coach and tutor, but only on a part-time basis now as he owns a business. He has to think for several moments about which hat he is wearing at any given time! It's cute to see the confused expression on his face when that happens. But back in the '70s it was so easy! My husband was single and lived in a bachelor pad (can you say that about a room above a friend's garage?), subsisted on toast and macaroni and cheese (because it was easy) and, as he sometimes reminds me, always had plenty of money even though he earned hardly enough to keep a gerbil alive. But that was before I came on the scene and all the fun started!

Anyway, Linda's brother Jim and several other guys began a close association with my husband one day at JV basketball practice when they were in the eighth grade. A star on the Rossford (Ohio) High School basketball team that, his senior year, made it all the way to the 1970 Ohio state championship game (where sadly they lost to Dayton Chaminade), my husband later attended The Citadel on a full basketball scholarship. He prizes his autographed copy of legendary UCLA coach John Wooden's "Pyramid of Success," and it's like falling off a log to get him to talk about the December night in 1971 when, at a packed Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles, the Bulldogs went down in history as part of UCLA's 88-game winning streak. Greg is a believer in the "fundamentals" of the game and his practices are tough. He built a great team out of that group of guys, taught them a lot about hoops and a lot about life, and they love him still. Through the years he has remained close to these kids although I can't remember the last time we saw one of them. Three of the guys were in our wedding party when we married in 1979, and we attended all of their weddings down through the years.

Jim, a feisty little point guard, was always my favorite. This was years before I even knew his sister Linda, but like her, Jim has a great personality. He's smart and funny and intuitive and just a neat guy. Today he is a fine Christian man who is a partner in his own law firm. When he married Debbie in October of 1985, we were in attendance even though I remember feeling unwell that day as I was newly expecting our third child. I don't know why I remember that so vividly, but I do. It was a lovely wedding and they remain to this day a darling and devoted couple. Of all the guys who were on the team all those years ago, it is Jim and Debbie who we have kept up with the most.

Jim and Debbie hadn't been married long when they learned they were expecting their first baby, who turned out to be a fine son. In due time several more children came along, because Jim and Debbie knew one thing: they wanted a large family. They adore kids, are great with their kids, and to see their family together is something special. Just a lot of teamwork and a lot of love on display. It's awesome. Debbie is a very attractive and poised woman who looks at least five years younger than her age. From the pictures Jim and Debbie would send to us over the years, the sons and daughters they were blessed with looked to be happy, well-adjusted kids. I think at least two of them are in college right now. Maybe three.

One day in the spring of 1997, nearly a year after Linda passed away, Debbie sent us a birth announcement for hers and Jim's latest addition to their family. Debbie always chose the most beautiful birth announcements, and I can still see this one in my mind's eye. It was a very simple pencil drawing of an infant rendered on thick white paper, and it lovingly gave all of the new baby's statistics. I'll call him Joey but that's not his real name either. Jim and Debbie were naturally so proud of their new little guy, and we were thrilled for them.

I will never forget the Sunday night less than four months later when we were told by a friend who knew that we were friends with Jim and Debbie, that there had been a tragedy. On the previous Friday Debbie had risen early as always, fed and organized her brood, and piled them all in the family van. Baby Joey was snuggled safely in his carseat. They set out first for another home, where they picked up a friend and her children, before heading to the last day of Vacation Bible School at their church. When they got to the church, Debbie asked her eldest daughter to carefully take Joey from his carseat and carry him and his diaper bag the few steps inside the church to the nursery. All the ladies in the nursery knew Jim and Debbie's children, and they would know exactly what to do with Joey.

A few hours later, having been busy all morning helping with VBS, Debbie trotted down to the nursery to collect Joey and breastfeed him. I should tell you here a little bit more about Debbie. She is a fantastic person and a truly amazing mother. She is extraordinarily capable and gets a great deal accomplished, but she is warm and personable and never abrupt. She is a happy and caring person who lives to be a good wife and mother. So when she showed up at the nursery door, all smiles, asking for Joey, imagine her dismay when she was met with a blank look from the nursery workers. Because you see, Joey had not been brought to the nursery that day. No one in the nursery had seen him since the day before.

Debbie told me later that when she realized Joey was not in the nursery, she knew instantly what had happened: he had been forgotten. She staggered outside into the sweltering August sun and, as one who is suddenly enveloped in a nightmare beyond all imagining, in a few steps covered the ground between the church door and her silent, accusing van. When she got there, through the window she saw her darling Joey, slumped in his carseat. When I talked to her a few days after the funeral Debbie said to me: "Jenny, I knew as soon as I saw him that he was dead."

Surely you can envision the pandemonium that ensued as poor Debbie, wailing, out of her mind with grief, gently pulled her lifeless baby from the carseat and ran back into the church and the arms of friends. Jim was called, paramedics were called, the police were called. Eventually the coroner was called. Everyone worked together to shield the other children from the horrendous sight of Debbie being placed in a squad car and driven to the police station after Joey's body was taken from her.

Debbie was released later that day and Joey's death was officially deemed to be exactly what it was: a tragic accident. Debbie thought her daughter had taken Joey to the nursery; the little girl either did not hear her mother's instruction or was unclear as to what she was expected to do. Neither Debbie nor Jim blamed their daughter for the accident. If I know their family, they bore -- and still bear -- their grief together with much love and forgiveness.

In the weeks after the funeral I called Debbie from time to time, just to check up on her. Sometimes when I called, Debbie would be resting and I'd chat with her mom, a very nice lady whom I had met several times over the years. One day when I called, though, Debbie answered. She sounded much stronger than she had before, and I was encouraged. She talked quite a bit about Joey and how much she had loved him, and how she missed taking care of him each day. Then she told me something that has never failed to amaze me every time I have thought of it over the years.

"Jenny," she said, "Do you remember that picture of you and Stephanie kissing? The one that used to hang on the living room wall in your house in Indiana?"

"Sure," I said. She was referring to a picture that had really been sort of an accident. In late 1981 I had taken Stephanie, who was about a year old, to Olan Mills to have her picture made. I don't remember all of the circumstances but judging from how I am dressed, I intended to have a picture made of me and Stephanie together. I do remember that Stephanie was not cooperating that day! That much I recall with clarity. She was fractious and probably tired, and the photo session was not going very well. It was stressful. I was holding her and the photographer was trying to be helpful but nothing was working, when on impulse I said to her, "Give mommy a kiss." Stephanie had just learned to do this. Incredibly, she stopped crying and leaned in to give me a kiss, and the photographer got the shot.

You can see her clutching my necklace, and she is flushed because she was upset. This was before the days when you were immediately bombarded with computerized images of the pictures, seemingly before they were even taken! In 1981 you went home and waited for at least a week before the studio called you to say your proofs were ready to be viewed. When I went home that day I was aggravated because I was sure the whole thing had been a failure and there would not be a good picture of Stephanie. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the picture of us kissing, and of course I bought a great big one, framed it and displayed it prominently on our wall. Although I had three more children, I have never again had a studio picture made of myself holding one of them.

Debbie loved that picture. When it was made she was a teenager and it would be years before she married Jim and had children of her own, but on the occasions when she was in our home, she always admired it. On the day when we were talking on the phone, Debbie told me that a few days before Joey died, it had been a very busy morning. She was getting him ready to go to the photo studio and have his four-month picture made. Debbie was fanatical about getting her kids' baby picures made right on schedule, and this would be Joey's first real portrait since his birth pictures. She told me that as she was getting him ready that morning, out of the blue she thought of the picture of me and Stephanie kissing. She decided that she would wear something special that day and ask the photographer to take a pose or two of her holding Joey. Since Joey was too young to "give mommy a kiss," Debbie kissed him tenderly and the photographer got the shot.

I wish I could show you that picture, but alas I have never seen it. But that day on the phone, Debbie told me that aside from a few random snapshots that always included at least one other family member, the picture of her kissing Joey is the only picture she had of just the two of them. And she told me, "If it weren't for your picture of Stephanie kissing you, I might not have this portrait of myself and Joey." I was crying by that time, and I told her how the picture had been a fluke. "Oh, no," she declared. "That was no accident. God knew that someday that picture would help someone, and that someone was me." To say I was humbled by her comment is an understatement. I later talked to someone who had visited in Jim and Debbie's home, and that person verified that a huge portrait of Debbie and Joey hung over the fireplace. I cried again, just thinking of it.

In Hebrews 13:2 the Bible says, Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. I believe that some little babies truly are angels, and I like to think that Joey was one of them. I believe that all human beings who die as babies go to Heaven, and I am certain that little Joey is there. I am so grateful that because of the faith I placed in Christ when I was 14, I will get to meet Joey someday. I'll probably have to negotiate with his loving parents and siblings -- not to mention his Aunt Linda -- for a chance to hold him, but that's okay. We'll have all eternity to share.

Won't that be a sweet picture?