The Funeral

       The viewing and funeral and the week leading up the funeral was an out of body experience for me. I truly felt like I was a fly on a wall watching this bad dream for our family. It didn't seem real, and I felt like I was watching a sad, sad movie. This movie was different. It was my family as the movie cast, not just some strangers. And this movie wasn't just a story being acted out. It was real. This was now our reality. And in just a few short hours we would be telling our precious baby boy goodbye for the last time here on earth. I was amazed by the love and support we received from so many friends and family. We had friends from all over attend Tytan's services, and I can't begin to tell you what it meant to have them there. Of course, it didn't take the pain away, not even a little, but it felt good to know they cared. It felt good to know we mattered in their lives. 

      I remember during the viewings, I couldn't keep my eyes and hands off my baby boy. I just wanted to pick him up and run. He couldn't really be gone. He was too young. He was too perfect. Saturday morning, I was hoping time would just stand still. The second viewing started at 9:30 AM, and it was a constant line for the hour & a half we were there. I remember I kept watching the clock praying it would just go slower, so I didn't have to EVER wrapped up my precious boy and close the casket with his tiny body here on earth. The funeral director cut off the line and told us we needed to prepare to say our goodbyes, so we could start the funeral on time. Our family went first. My parents and brothers are very close to my kids, so it broke my heart to see their hearts breaking as they kissed their grandson/nephew. Then came the moment I dreaded for days. I laid my head on his small little chest and sobbed. I wanted so badly to hear a beating heart, but I couldn't and knew it wouldn't. I remember kissing his soft sweet lips and peace came over me. I vividly heard a voice in head. To be honest it was a voice I didn't recognize, but by what was said I knew it was my Tytie boy. I heard, "Don't cry mommy. I'm okay now. I promise you will see me soon" At that moment I was once again reassured and testified to that I would see my little boy again. He's not gone forever. Soon-- I'm not sure if that means months, 5 years, or 80 + years until I see him, but I know in the eternal realm of things no matter how long it is, or how long it seems, it will be soon. I look forward to that day every moment of every day. I dream of that day. O what a glorious day it will be.

     No funeral is ever good or easy, but I must say Tytan's turned out perfect. It was just what I wanted it to be. Our little Az and nieces and nephews sang so cute. The speakers did an incredible job. My humble husband was so sweet reading his only son's life sketch and carrying his sweet little casket to his resting spot. I know Tytan was there. I know Tytan approved and was proud. Tytan was happy with the way he valiant, short, and nothing but perfect little life was celebrated. 

Here is a link to a video of Tytan's Special Services - Tytan's Life Celebration

Miracles

“A miracle is an extraordinary event caused by the power of God. Miracles are an important element in the work of Jesus Christ. They include healings, restoring the dead to life, and resurrection. Miracles are a part of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Faith is necessary in order for miracles to be manifested” 

There are countless stories we hear every single day about miracles taking place from back in scripture times to current day in our own lives. From the time we are old enough to talk we are taught about the "miracles" in the scriptures - healing the sick, parting the red sea, feeding thousands with 2 loaves of bread & few fish, and saving Daniel from the lion's den. You could go on and on about the many miraculous miracles that God has preformed throughout the years.

Over the past couple months, I have found myself questioning and asking Heavenly Father, "Where was our miracle?" "Are we not important enough in God's eye that we didn't deserve a miracle?" "Were we not faithful or prayerful enough for a miracle to happen?"
Of course neither of those are true. I know Heavenly Father loves each of us all the same, and none is more important than the other. We were more than faithful during our trial, and I know the Lord recognized our efforts. We were in constant prayer since the day we found out about Tytan's heart condition. For the 2 1/2 months we spent fighting in the hospital, we were fasting at least every other day. We did everything we could. Tytan had a priesthood blessing daily. We had the faith, and we just KNEW he would be healed. We had multiple family fast, a community wide fast, and people from all over the world were praying and pleading for our little guys life to be saved, but why wasn't it?

This past month in our own little community we have witnessed a miraculous miracle. A sweet little girl had a drowning accident and went 30+ minutes without oxygen, and she has had an incredible recovery thus far. I don't know the full details, but she doesn't have near the damage they thought she would, and she is expected to make a full recovery. How awesome is that? I love hearing about these types of miracles, but I would be a liar if I didn't admit it pulls at my heart string, and I once again wonder "why not us?"

After many many nights on my knees, praying, and reading the Book of Mormon I had come to an understanding of why not us. It comes down to "It wasn't part of the plan" That itself is a miracle in my eye that the Lord loves and cares about each one of us so much that he has carefully sought out a plan for each and every one of us. No two plans are the same or I personally believe no two plans are fair. Before we came to the Earth in the Pre-existence I think each one of us helped design our plan. That may seem crazy talk to some, and you might be thinking "I definitely didn't agree to this". But I truly believe each one of us had agency and made choices before we were born just like we do now. Tytan made the choice to be the one in our family to pave the way. He knew it wasn't going to be easy, but he agreed to come down here for a short time and return home. Jordan and I agreed to be the parents of an absolute PERFECT child and knew we would have to pay the price of letting him return home early. Azleigh made the choice to come here and be the strong spirit she is to keep her parents going and be a light to us on the darkest of days. Do we remember any of this? Absolutely not. That is what the veil is for. But there is one guy who does and remembers ALL of it. He knows the big picture - the big plan. Did we know it was going to be this hard? To be honest, I don't think we did, but that is where faith comes in. We must have the faith in "the plan" to be strong enough to keep going, to not allow ourselves to get angry & hate God. God doesn't not perform miracles or give us trials to punish us. If we use these trials in the right way, they strengthen us. They strengthen others. They teach us. They prepare us for the things to take place in the future and the here-after. We can choose to let our life experiences make us bitter or better.

The more I pondered about the "miracles" in our life, especially in the past year I realized yes "Tytan wasn't raised from the dead" or "Yes Tytan's brain wasn't miraculously healed from all the lack of oxygen", and "No Tytan didn't received a new heart to keep him alive" but GUESS WHAT? We witnessed more miracles in Tytan's 6 months of life than some do in an entire lifetime. The first miracle was that Tytan lived as long as he did, thanks to God's Miracles workers who truly do perform miracles at Primary Children's hospital. It was a miracle that we as a family ever got to bring Tytan home from the hospital. It was a miracle that Tytan was able to spend 2 months at home completely TUBE FREE! It was a miracle I got to see Tytan smile and giggle. We witnessed a miracle when all odds were against us and Tytan came off both ECMO and the ventilator. It was a miracle Tytan's little body declared itself, and we as parents didn't have to make the choice to "pull the plug". It's a miracle Jordan worked for Vernal City who never let him miss a day of pay whether he was there or not, and a community that didn't even know us but did more for us "strangers" than I could dream. It's a miracle we had the support system we did and still have that have blessed our lives in more ways can we can count. It's a miracle that a boy with such a small little body could change so many lives in such a short amount of time. We received many miracles after all didn't we?

I think sometimes as humans we take the everyday miracles for granted. We forget just how fortunate each of are in the hardest of times. We forget that just because God didn't raise our loved one from the dead that we haven't been granted miracles. EVERY SINGLE DAY IS A MIRACLE. Each of us have different struggles. Each of us live fairly different lives, but no matter how hard you think you have it there is still miracles within your life. Whether you have lost a loved one, gone through a divorce, struggled to have children, or whatever life may have thrown at you sit back and count just all the miracles you have been blessed with. It's a miracle you wake up every morning. It's a miracle you have a job and a home to live in. It's a miracle whether you have a spouse, one child, or multiple children that you have someone to love and come home to at night.
I challenge you next time you are struggling to focus on what you do have rather than what you don't. If you are fed up with your job, consider it a miracle you have one. If you are tired of whiny kids, consider them being able to cry a miracle. I have met many parents who have children on ventilators who a crying child would be music to your ears. If you are tired and exhausted of taking care of a sick child, consider it a miracle they are still here with you. Many bereaved parents would give anything to go back to the days of living in the hospital with a sick child. If you think you have it bad, always remember someone else, somewhere out there, probably have it worse than you do.

Lastly, Remember EVERYDAY IS A MIRACLE!!

His Last Suit

Have you ever had to go shopping for an outfit knowing it would be the last one they'd ever wore? If you haven't I am here to tell you it sucks and its hard, very hard. Tytan was blessed in the hospital, so he never wore his blessing outfit. The day before he passed  I had a sweet lady fulfill one of my desires, and she came and took a few pictures of Tytan in his blessing outfit. He looks so sick, but they are pictures I will forever cherish!
After he passed, I had no clue what to dress him in for his burial. I didn't want to bury him in his blessing outfit because I wanted to frame his like I did Azleigh's and have it as a keepsake. I wanted him in white though because he was now a little angel, so we braved the idea of going shopping for something white. I have to say it was the worst shopping trip of my life. I hated everything we found. We went to every LDS, White Clothing Stores from Payson to American Fork. After spending an entire day being completely unsuccessful, I end up buying 3 different little blessing outfits and going home. I was exhausted and came to conclusion I wasn't going to like anything I had to bury my baby in, so I gave up.
I requested that we got to dress our little boy, and Mike was so good to let me be involved as I could be and do whatever I could handle. We met him there on early Friday to dress Tytan and set up for the viewing. As he rolled my baby boy out, it was once again confirmed to me that Tytan was safe in Heaven, and this was only his shell. The events that take place after death of a child are hard to put down in words. It is a feeling and experiences that really can't be explained in words.
Dressing Tytan was another one of those indescribable feelings. I remember before I left home that day I grabbed the "less ugly" white outfit out of the three. Like I mentioned before I really didn't like any of them. As we put that little white outfit on our baby's body, then the suit jacket, it transformed into one of the most beautiful outfits/scene I had ever laid eyes on. He looked so perfect, so pure, and so Heavenly. He little like a little version of a veil worker in the temple. We continued to put on his white socks, shoes, and comb his hair into my favorite little blonde fohawk. I couldn't help but cry knowing I had an ABSOLUTE PERFECT son. Many of us like to think our kids our perfect, but I can truly say mine is.
A sweet lady in Provo made him the most beautiful, softest blanket and gave it to us to wrap him up in. We wrapped him up and placed him in the casket so he was ready for his special services.

Only A Shell

        I remember waking up Monday morning and truly wondering what had happened. I felt like a zombie. I wanted to do nothing more than lay in my bed, cry, and hold who I had left tight. But even that first day after reality hit & life continued to go on in some way, even though I had no desire to do any of it. I remember shortly after waking up, we received a call from the mortuary letting us know we needed an obituary submitted by 4:00 that afternoon. We had to start planning a funeral whether we wanted to or not. I remember talking to Jordan trying to make plans, and we both kept saying over & over again "funerals aren't meant for babies". Unless you've planned a funeral for a baby/child you won't understand just how hard it is.
      As we started to plan, nothing felt right. Nothing seem to fit my boy. And to be honest I hated everything about it, but really who would love something or feel right about anything that had to do with planning a funeral and burial for their sweet baby. At the same time, I wanted everything perfect because I knew it was one of the very last things I got to do for my baby boy. I knew that this service had to sum up his 6 months of life and who it was. Tytan was perfect, and that is why planning a service was so hard because I knew it had to be nothing more than PERFECT.
      The night Tytan passed in my mind I knew he was gone, but in my heart I felt like my baby boy was still there. I could feel him so close the entire 6 hours we spent with his body. It felt like it did at home when I was able to treat my baby "normal". I could rock him, bath him, and walk with him. He was this perfect sleeping baby that I just wanted to bundle up and take home.
    Mike, the mortician, called and asked us to come meet with them Tuesday, so we could pick out the casket and other funeral things. He also told us he would have Tytan's body prepared, so we could see him if we would like. Of course we wanted to see him. In my mind I was excited. I couldn't wait. It had been less than 48 hours since he passed, but my arms and heart ached to hold him. When we got to the mortuary I wasn't prepared for what was about to happen. In my mind, I thought I would feel the same way I did on the night he passed.
    I was so wrong. As he wheeled my baby out on a table that was clearly made for an adult body I couldn't help but think this isn't right. This isn't suppose to happen. Death isn't for babies. Tytan was dressed in the same Superman outfit and wrapped in his baby blue sport blanket that we handed him over in, but this time there was something different. What was it? It was no longer my baby. Yes, it was my sweet baby's body, but his spirit was gone. It was now nothing more than a perfect tabernacle that kept his spirit for the past 6 months, but now his spirit had returned home to his Heavenly Home. I was devastated by the feeling I got when I first seen him because in my mind I was thinking I was coming to see "my baby". I asked Mike if I could hold him. I was secretly hoping that holding him would change the feelings I had felt, but it didn't. In fact, it did the exact opposite. As he placed his precious body in my arms, the Holy Ghost confirmed to me it was now only his physical shell. It was a completely different feeling. He even looked different. I had never witnessed these feelings before & will never forget them either. As I held my sweet little baby boy's body I couldn't help but think how heavy his small little 10-11 lbs. swollen body felt.
     I held Tytan for about an hour before we left. As I went home, I couldn't shake those feelings I felt. I was bothered. I felt so uneasy. I knew what happened after we die. I knew what happened to infants who passed before the age of accountability. I had been LDS all my life and been taught these principles for 22 years. That night as I was on the computer making Tytan's video, I started to search & study different "plan of salvation" and "our spirits after death" talks online.
I found a talk from Wilford Woodruff that brought me so much peace and comfort. He are some pieces of it that I personally found helpful.

A great many [people] believe when a man dies that is the end of him, that there is no hereafter. Can any sensible man believe that the God of heaven has created two or three hundred thousand million spirits, and given them tabernacles [physical bodies], merely to come and live upon the earth and then to pass away into oblivion or to be annihilated? It seems to me that no reflecting man can entertain such belief. It is contrary to common sense and to serious reflection.¹⁰

When mourning the loss of our departed friends, I cannot help but think that in every death there is a birth; the spirit leaves the body dead to us, and passes to the other side of the veil alive to that great and noble company that are also working for the accomplishment of the purposes of God, in the redemption and salvation of a fallen world.¹¹

There is rejoicing when the spirit of a Saint of the Living God enters into the spirit world and meets with the Saints who have gone before.

Some labor this side of the veil, others on the other side of the veil. If we tarry here we expect to labor in the cause of salvation, and if we go hence we expect to continue our work until the coming of the Son of Man.¹³

As I read that, it may me aware of the joyous reunion that took place when Tytan's spirit entered the Heavens. I think that first night why I felt the way I did because Tytan was so close to us. He stayed with us and wrapped his arms around us all until we left that night. After that night, he went to work. He went to do the Lord's work on the other side of the veil and live his life in Heaven. Of course, Tytan spirit is still close to us and helps us often, but we have never felt our '"Tytan" the way we did that night since.

There is no infant or child that has died before arriving at the years of accountability, but what is redeemed, and is therefore entirely beyond the torments of hell. … I will defy any man to find in any of the records of divine truth any ordinance instituted for the salvation of little innocent children; it would be unnecessary on the face of it, and the only thing that can be found is where Jesus took the little ones in his arms and blessed them, which is and would be perfectly right to do according to the order of God. But the sprinkling of infants or the doctrine that infants go to hell under any circumstances, is a doctrine ordained of man and not of God, and is therefore of no avail and entirely wrong and displeasing in the sight of God. So much about the infants. … They are redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ.²¹

Children are innocent before the Lord; as to their death and the cause thereof, that is in the hands of God, and we should not complain of the Lord or his dispensations any more than Job did. … There is this consolation connected with the matter—they are innocent, they are not in transgression. They have paid the law of death which God passed on Adam and all his posterity; but when their spirits left their bodies and got into the spirit world their trouble and affliction were over. … They will come forth out of their graves in the morning of the resurrection, … clothed with glory, immortality and eternal life, in eternal beauty and bloom, and they will be given into the hands of their parents, and they will receive them in the family organization of the celestial world, and their parents will have them for ever. They will live as long as their God lives. This, to Latter-day Saints, who believe in the resurrection, should be a source of comfort and consolation.

… The question may arise with me and with you—“Why has the Lord taken away my children?” But that is not for me to tell, because I do not know; it is in the hands of the Lord, and it has been so from the creation of the world all the way down. Children are taken away in their infancy, and they go to the spirit world. They come here and fulfil the object of their coming, that is, they tabernacle in the flesh. They come to receive a probation and an inheritance on the earth; they obtain a body, or tabernacle, and that tabernacle will be preserved for them, and in the morning of the resurrection the spirits and bodies will be reunited, and as here we find children of various ages in a family, from the infant at the mother’s breast to manhood, so will it be in the family organization in the celestial world. Our children will be restored to us as they are laid down if we, their parents, keep the faith and prove ourselves worthy to obtain eternal life; and if we do not so prove ourselves our children will still be preserved, and will inherit celestial glory. This is my view in regard to all infants who die, whether they are born to Jew or Gentile, righteous or wicked. They come from their eternal father and their eternal mother unto whom they were born in the eternal world, and they will be restored to their eternal parentage; and all parents who have received children here according to the order of God and the holy priesthood, no matter in what age they may have lived, will claim those children in the morning of the resurrection, and they will be given unto them and they will grace their family organizations in the celestial world. …

… I will say to our mourning friends, your children are taken away and you cannot help it, we cannot any of us help it; there is no censure to be given to parents when they do the best they can. A mother should not be censured because she cannot save her sick child, and we have to leave these things in the hand of God. It will be but a little time until they will be restored to us. …

With regard to the growth, glory or exaltation of children in the life to come God has not revealed anything on that subject to me, either about your children, mine or anybody else’s, any further than we know they are saved. And I feel that we have to put our trust in the Lord in these afflictions, we have to lean upon his arm and to look to him for comfort and consolation. We do not mourn under these afflictions as those who have no hope; we do not mourn the loss of our children as though we were never going to see them again, because we know better. The Lord has taught us better, and so has the gospel; the revelations of Jesus Christ have shown us that they will be restored to us in the resurrection of the just. …

One of the hardest parts of the entire process was the thoughts of burying my baby boy in the ground. It was honestly too much for me to even think about and still is. My poor husband and parents had to pick out his burial plot, but it was too much for me too handle. I just wanted to keep that sweet little body of my baby's with me forever. The thoughts of laying him in the cold ground made my skin crawl. I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am for the knowledge of the gospel. It is the only way we survive, the only way we cope, and the only way we push through another day. Can you imagine if you thought that death was the end? If 6 months, or 6 days, or 6 years was all you ever got with your loved ones? Can you imagine if you had to not only lay their bodies, but their spirits to rest as well? The thoughts of it are unbearable for me. I know without a doubt this isn't the end. Tytan didn't just live for 6 months. Yes he was only on Earth for 6 months, but he still lives. He lives on the other side of the veil and is doing a great and marvelous work there. I know Tytan's spirit was separated from his physical shell after death. This is all possible because of our Savior Jesus Christ. He made this possible for you and for me! I will forever be grateful for these sacrifices he made for me and my family. I look so forward to the day when I can personally thank him for allowing me to not only have my sweet Tytan for 6 months, but for all eternity!