November 9

Pictures and Videos from home kept me going. Love these 3. It was so hard for Jerika to be so far away from all of us. She was such a trooper.

Laina to the rescue once again. If you know me you know I NEED PEOPLE. I probably already said that in one of my other posts. Her family was my lifeline to people.

We made Jonah get in the picture. He will never know how much I appreciate him. What amazing kids Laina has.

Back then Blake knew everything about her care. What her blood pressure should be, her temperature, her heart rate. ALL THE THINGS. I really have a hard time writing anything nice about him after what he put her through during the divorce. I've said it already, it could have been so much easier and it just puts a bitter taste in my mouth for him and his family. But, God will take care of all of that one day. She's so much better off right now with us.

And look I researched this place way before we ever went there.

This is the explanation of the picture above. These loaded out of order sorry

This was morning time at the hotel while Blake's mom was still there. Does Ray look irritated??? HE WAS. After spending from 8 pm to 8 am away from the hospital the first thing we wanted to do every day WAS GET TO THE HOSPITAL. These 2 drug their feet every morning and we only had 1 rental car. It was hard. 

November 8

 

This was our reality for days just watching our girl and trying to figure out how to get her closer to home. This nurse was our favorite Chelsea and she did everything in her power to keep Kinlee's long beautiful hair. Seeing the name Sharp on everything helped me so much. Blake was so amazing in the beginning. This is hard for me to write since we know what the end result was with him. But, he had a lot of pressure to jump ship in the beginning too. His dad would call several times a day and we could hear his dad say "She's not your problem anymore, all you are doing is watching the machines breath for her. You need to come home and go back to work". But, he knew everything about the machines and if something didn't look right he made sure to tell whoever would listen. I still think the hardest part was leaving her every night. We did get rest, well as much as we could, sleeping was so hard too, but being gone from 8 pm to 8 am was so hard.

November 7

Messages like these literally pushed me through my day. I didn't save all of them but they were my lifeline through this entire process.

Laina was my LIFELINE to the outside world. Her and Sophia were amazing. Not only did they have Jonah pick me up at the airport, they came every weekend and brought us supplies, and food and just helped me feel a little more normal and sane. Emma helped pay for a lot of the supplies too. We do love our California cousins, I don't know how I could ever repay them. The EEG was GREAT news that is when we found out she did have brain activity. Thank goodness we didn't have to make the hard decision. We didn't know what was ahead of us but we knew she was going to live and we would take whatever life brought us. 

 

The View From the Outside

There is a specific kind of quiet that feels incredibly loud. It’s the silence that follows an unreturned message, the empty space where a conversation used to be, or the heavy stillness of wondering, “Did I say something wrong?”

​Lately, I’ve been living in that quiet.

​Every single day, a familiar paranoia creeps in. It whispers that I’ve offended people, that I’ve somehow misstepped, and that the silence from those around me—even my own people—is a quiet verdict. It is exhausting to constantly replay interactions in your mind, searching for the exact moment a bridge might have broken, wondering why the responses have stopped.

​The hardest part isn't just the silence; it’s everything unsaid. There is so much I could say about my own feelings, so much depth and nuance to what I am carrying, but the space to say it feels like it’s shrinking.

​Instead, I find myself on the outside looking in.

​It is a surreal feeling to watch a life you used to be so deeply embedded in simply continue. The world keeps spinning, people keep moving, plans are made, and days pass—all without you. You become a spectator to a world you used to inhabit. And the sting of that isolation doesn't just affect me. It cuts even deeper to watch the same pattern ripple outward, seeing Kinlee’s friends continue forward, leaving a quiet space where she should be.

​When you are on the outside, you realize how fragile connections can be. But you also realize the value of genuine presence.

​To anyone else who is currently standing in the cold, watching the warmth of their old life move on through a window: I see you. It is a lonely place to be, but you are not wrong for feeling the weight of it.

Present Day

 We got family pictures taken and look how cute our family is. Jerika wanted birth announcement photos and we wanted a quick family picture, so we just used our cell phones and took some pictures. They aren't professional, but I think they look pretty awesome. And look at the happy Kinlee. We just love her happy disposition. She's amazing. We missed Keegan and Tyler but we will take official family pictures in August.