Cayden

We went out of town last week. We drove to North Carolina to attend the Celebration of Life service for Cayden Arnold. Cayden’s mom is on the board of directors of Families for HoPE, and she’s one of our founding directors. Cayden was born in August 2003, just four months following Sammy’s birth. Cayden passed away in his sleep on January 31, just three weeks after Sammy. The trip was very therapeutic and healing for us, allowing us to express our love and grief for both Sammy and Cayden, along with all of the other little ones with HPE who have passed away. Today, we learned that a writer from the Associated Press has written about Cayden and his special family. Click on this link from USA Today.

Steve returned to work yesterday following a leave of absence. I’m at home today, and today is my first day alone in the house since Sammy passed away. The only sounds I hear are the furnace running and drops of water from the leaky faucet in the bathroom just around the corner. It’s quite different than it was with Sammy here when I’d hear the nurse’s footsteps, the suction machine, the feeding pump alarms. No longer do I hear the phrases, “Sammy just threw up, again!”, “Leslie, can you come look at this?”, or “Did you realize that you’re almost out of wipes?” Those phrases and sounds would be music to my ears today!