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When Steven arrived at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital and eventually was able to connect with Ray for a moment, Ray looked Steven right in the eyes. “We’re not home yet,” he said. It was the title to a song Steven had written a year or two before about the journey toward heaven.

They hugged and cried. Then Steven stayed and prayed as Ray and Lori needed to make decisions about Lori and Alex’s medical treatments and organ donation for Erin.

Steven and I couldn’t imagine such pain. Lori and Alex’s physical injuries would slowly heal, but the emotional loss was devastating.

As they made preparations for the funeral, Ray and Lori asked Steven to sing “Not Home Yet,” the song that Ray and Steven talked about in the emergency room that night.

Alex got out of the hospital an hour before her sister’s funeral. Lori had been discharged as well. Alex couldn’t understand what had happened, and she internalized the pain of her older sister’s death. For years to come she would struggle in school and bottle up intense frustration and guilt.

As Steven and Ray spent time together over the months that followed, Steven was moved to write the Mullicans a more personal song about their grief journey. He took a tape of Erin singing “Jesus Loves Me” and incorporated it into the beginning of his song “With Hope,” which was recorded on his Speechless CD. It’s a testimony to a family that we watched grieve with the hope of a living Comforter, a brave family who daily confirmed through their pain and tears that they would see their little girl again.

Since we were new to the small group, I didn’t know Lori very well yet. I had no words for her. I couldn’t even imagine losing a child so suddenly . . . and on top of that being injured and worried about her other daughter.

But I wanted to do what I could. Over time I started going over to Lori’s house and just hanging out with her. She showed me a recent picture of her girls. I asked her for the negative and had a black-and-white copy enlarged to portrait size. I loved hand tinting black and white photographs, so I wanted to do one as a gift for Lori. It was my way of loving her without inadvertently saying the painful, stupid words that sometimes get said to grieving parents, even when people’s intentions are good.

Sometimes long minutes would go by where nothing would be said. Other times we’d talk about insignificant things. Every now and then God would give me words . . . but mostly I’d try to make her laugh, which is my way. I felt so incapable of putting any kind of salve on so huge a wound. As we spent time together, we became close friends. It felt as if walking with her during this time included me in their fellowship of suffering. I had no idea what God was preparing me for.

And so it made sad sense that when my own day of tragedy would come ten years later, Lori would be the first person I would call.

“With Hope”

Words and music by Steven Curtis Chapman This is not at all how

We thought it was supposed to be

We had so many plans for you

We had so many dreams

And now you’ve gone away

And left us with the memories of your smile

And nothing we can say

And nothing we can do

Can take away the pain

The pain of losing you, but . . .

We can cry with hope

We can say goodbye with hope

’Cause we know our goodbye is not the end, oh no

And we can grieve with hope

’Cause we believe with hope

There’s a place where we’ll see your face again

We’ll see your face again

And never have I known

Anything so hard to understand

And never have I questioned more

The wisdom of God’s plan

But through the cloud of tears

I see the Father smile and say well done

And I imagine you

Where you wanted most to be

Seeing all your dreams come true

’Cause now you’re home

And now you’re free, and . . .

We wait with hope

And we ache with hope

We hold on with hope

We let go with hope

12

Laughter

Before you make your final decision about adoption

please remember that there are children being born as

you read this letter that have