Alyssa.

So, I debated bringing this to Facebook, to any public forum really but after seeing the outpouring of just basic human love and compassion from so many people who don't even know our Alyssa and hearing of all the prayers that have been shouted, whispered and sung to the heavens for her, I felt as though everyone deserved a peek into what has been going on since yesterday. 

So many of you know of her struggle, have prayed for her for years, have been by our side as we have walked that thin line between life and death with Alyssa before, so many know her personally, know that she is a combination of comic relief and laughter, her art, her fragility, my darling is a beautiful, amazing creature, this we know.

Yesterday we came so close to losing her, yesterday could have gone so differently had she been home alone at the time.

Yesterday Alyssa was sitting on her sofa with her boyfriend Travis, and he looked over at her because she had started to tense up and become rigged and began to turn blue, Travis called 911 and when they arrived, she had no heartbeat, no pulse, she was gone, THANK GOD they were able to get her heart beating again, found a pulse and immediatly transported her to the nearest hospital, since arriving there yesterday afternoon, she was flown to a hospital in Bend, Oregon where she is in the ICU and being watched over and cared for so perfectly. She is on a ventilator still, and just this morning opened her eyes the tiniest bit, she has blinked to certain questions asked of her so she is having some sort of response..SHE IS ALIVE and I do believe we have seen God's glory. 

Please pray and continue to pray for her healing of both body and soul, pray for her boyfriend Travis, there needs to be an awakening within them to see and know that life as we know it is just so fragile, so unknowing, so easy to take for grantide, pray for Lucinda, the wonderful woman who was put in Alyssas life before this  happened and who has been there for Alyssa and for us when we can't be, she is doing a great thing for us. I can't wait for the day I get to hear her voice on the phone again saying something that will most likely make me laugh, if she and I aren't crying together...we are laughing and this is what I want with her again. I keep hearing her in my head saying, "don't make me sing...don't make me dance". I look around our house and there are traces of her everywhere, drawings, pictures, this girl of mine has been granted another chance, another moment to sing, another moment to dance, another day to draw, another day to love and thankfully another day to BE loved.

Uphold our other kids in your prayers, they all 4 have different ways of dealing with things like this. Lucas doesn't know, but Corbin, Brenna and Dominic do, they ache, all in their own ways, they too are fragile.

So to you my darling Alyssa...

Tomorrow it will be exactly one month until you turn 22 and what I find so incredibly beautiful about that is, you get to do that. You get to wake up in the morning on June 5th and be 22. You came into this world not breathing, your breathing stopped a few times at the hospital, you were flown to Milwaukee to the Childrens Hospital and held and rocked and sang to by your Grandma when I couldnt be there, and here you are again, not breathing on your own just yet but being watched over and loved and prayed for, being rocked and held by Heavenly Father. Alyssa...you are ALIVE!