For Karissa

Pictures, snapshots in my head of your first day at home

Resting in your bassinet I can recall the view like yesterday

Of dolls and soccer and graduations and a wedding

Your pretty purple pajamas – Daddy’s perfect little lady

Perfect lasted just 2 short weeks and then it started with a scare

Daddy could not find God in it all, just fear and despair

Tubes and beeps and needles and a cold room

You began to give us a new view of the world – Patience Daddy

A reprieve and then more seizures and hospital beds

Doctors have no answer for you and it is frustrating

Swings and smiles and strange food and walks hand in hand

Expectations have become simple prayers for a miracle – Daddy loves you

Pictures, nightmares of that first moment of the rest of my life

Heart pounding fast and then a resigned ache of sadness

Screaming and sirens and tears and people everywhere

You are healed and God will be found in the details – Daddy misses you