The Five Tulips

Yes...I wrote the poem and took the picture above. The tulips are actually growing in our front yard. :)

The Five Tulips

We love you, dear Emma
And wish there could be
A family of four
And not just of three

But sometimes His garden
Though lovingly sown
Makes buds that don’t grow
And blooms never shown

And I with my grief
And God with “His plan”
Struggle to grasp
What I can’t understand

A life that was wanted
But taken too soon
To grace Heaven’s garden
Shortly to bloom

This spring that you left
And never before
Five tulip flowers
Appeared at our door

Four blooms stand high
A bud underneath
A message from God?
A sign just for me?

Will this be our family,
And future to come?
With four open hearts
To love the bud of one

Thank you all who have donated money to the March for Babies. We earned over $500 total in about a week, and I have also received some additional donations since the March. We attended the March for Babies in Topeka yesterday. Tim, Corey and I participated in the march and had a great time. There were well over 1,000 people there and turned out to be a great family event. Tim and I thought we were clever in having T-shirts made to commemorate our cause. They said "Like a bridge over troubled water...I will lay me down. In loving memory of Emma Grace Decker, April 9, 2009." I was surprised to see just how many other people were there with their own T-shirts, their own lost babies and their own personal tragedies. It was sad but also touching to see how many families had been affected by the loss of an infant or pregnancy and how many of them took up the cause of raising money for the March of Dimes. Because I am a huge nerd, I read a book several months ago about the polio virus, development of the vaccine and the inception of the March of Dimes. When the original March of Dimes campaign began, they achieved overwhelming success in getting lots and lots of people to contribute small amounts of money. The organizers were wildly successful in achieving their goals, and ultimately saved countless generations of American children from the tragedy of polio. The current March of Dimes campaign is still very successful. The march that I participated in was inspiring and fun.