I believe that God honors our questions just as my dad honored mine. I believe that God stays with us, even when prayers and songs seem flimsy as paper angels. I believe that it helps to leave the hall light on when the questions come faster than morning. And I keep asking those questions because somewhere in the asking I find I am not answered but I am heard.

I’ve been sleeping in her bed with her, nervous at listening to her uneven breathing and feeling her body radiate heat, but more nervous to be in the other room. Throughout the night, she says, “Mama?” and asks for water, more blankets, fewer blankets, or the ice pack that fell on the floor. She is constantly aware of my presence. “Mama?” I love to hear her voice asking for me, assuming I am there. Most of all, I love her arm reaching to me in her sleep, not needing anything. Reaching because, even as she dreams, she dreams of me.

Because the truth is, you and I and Eden are all incomplete. We were made for a world beyond blood work and teasing and life expectancies. We were made for perfection.

Perhaps the beauty in Eden’s face is that she knows this. She radiates joy not in spite of what is “not right” about life but because of it. Because every loss we experience points us to the time when loss will be no more. Because life itself is more right than we realize.