A Prayer for the Twins
By Jennier Hayes, M.Div., Director of Spiritual Care at Cook Children's Health Care System
Bravery—investing our love in children when the only certainty is that our future together is unknown; creating high tech gizmos to figure out the best ways to care for our patients; trusting strangers with our babies simply because the strangers said they would try their best; shifting our focus away from a professional milestone to reflect on the fragility of humanity by painting tiny fingernails—bravery.
Blessed are you who keep showing up every time you are blindsided by the unthinkable; you are brave.
Miraculous—in modern medicine; with 25 medical providers agreeing to wear two, very specific colors; through fear and peace, uncertainty and intentionality, all coexisting in the midst of hopeful collaboration; by the sound of parental voices erasing every worry from babies who cannot yet articulate their woes—miraculous.
Blessed are you who make space for science and the sacred to coincide; you are miracle makers.
Hope—from two little girls whose entire life has been a loving embrace; by staff who adapted to the needs of a special set of sisters and their parents; in the holy words offered to facilitate healing to the belief that what is may not always be—hope.
AmieLynn and JamieLynn—blessed are you who are separate, but never apart; never alone; and forever sacred.
Amen.