We have received hundreds of notes, flowers, posts, drop-ins, etc. in the past few days. We are so thankful for each individual's comfort to us during our grief. I was up early this morning reading posts on our blog and found a poem I particularly liked from a colleague in Sydney, Australia (whom I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting through IPREX).

I'll Lend You A Child- by Edgar Guest

"I'll lend you for a little time a child of mine," He said.
For you to love - while he lives
And mourn for when he's dead.

It may be six or seven years
Or twenty-two or three,
But will you, till I call him back,
Take care of him for Me?

He'll bring his smiles to gladden you,
And should this stay be brief
You'll have his lovely memories as solace for your grief.

I cannot promise he will stay,
Since all from earth return,
But there are lessons taught down there
I want this child to learn.

I've looked this world over
In search for teachers true,
And from the throngs that crowd
Life's lanes, I have selected you.

Now will you give him all your love,
Nor count the labor vain,
Nor hate Me when I come to call to
Take him back again?"

I fancied that I heard then say,
"Dear Lord, Thy will be done,
For all the joy Thy child shall bring,

The risk of grief we'll run.
We'll shelter him with tenderness,
We'll love him while we may,
And for the happiness we've known
Forever grateful stay.

But should the angels call for him
Much sooner than we've planned,
We'll brave the bitter grief that comes
And try to understand."

Misc.

Lee Anne and I are so overwhelmed by the response and the hope so many communities of people are bringing us. We are blessed.

Isaiah's obituary was in the Oklahoman this morning.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/oklahoman/obituary.aspx?n=isaiah-stone&pid=142908247

The last two days have been incredible and horrible. Incredible that we have been surrounded by love from so many people. Horrible that we planned our son's funeral, made the decision to cremate him, picked out his final resting place and signed his death certificate.

The number of emails and texts and posts have been too numerous to respond to, but we are trying our best to read all of them. Please keep them coming - they provide the inspiration we need hour by hour.

We know that people are curious how Isaiah died. It is a natural human emotion to wonder why. A quick summary is as follows.

The storm on Sunday night was terrible. Lee Anne and I got home to relieve our babysitter about thirty minutes before the hail hit. The boys were both asleep. We made the decision to wake them up (they'd only been down an hour) and take cover. As soon as the hail stopped, Isaiah had a small seizure. He had not had a seizure in over a month because we upped his dose of medicine. The seizure, surprisingly, was over quickly. The doctors assured us that seizures were not harmful to Isaiah and that we just needed to give him the appropriate medicine (a cocktail dose of Valium called Diastat) to stop the seizure. He has had long seizures - his one in late march lasted an hour and twenty minutes and had to be stopped with a medically induced coma and a trip to the ER and then ICU - so we are quick to give the meds. This time was different, he didn't need the med to stop the seizure. Later that night before bed, Lee Anne and I agreed that we needed to call the neurologist and tell her what happened.

After the storm, we started clean up. My best friend and roommate from OU, Tim Heskett, came over and we started covering the skylights that broke, six in total plus three windows. It took several hours and we determined our home was not livable. Tim invited us to stay at his house for the night with his wife Natalie and infant son, CJ. They live about a mile away.

Lee Anne and the boys loaded up for Tim's house. Tim and I followed shortly after. It was decided that we would have a pizza party. Isaiah abandoned baby food about a month ago and loved any sorts of carbs, frankly he loved any kind of food. Cous cous with garbanzo beans were among his recent favorites. Everyone had a great dinner and then we played on the floor in Tim's living room.

Isaiah was so happy. He laughed. He crawled. He was doing great.

Bath time followed. Isaiah loved the bathtub and he was playing like crazy. He would pull the shower lever and then make the most confused face when water began hitting his head. Some of our best laughs were with Isaiah in the bathtub.

Isaiah took a bottle and went to bed. No fever. No ear infection. Medicine taken. He was fine. It was 8:00.

About 10:30, we heard him stirring and went to the door of the room he was sleeping in to check on him. The sounds were normal baby coos and we smiled. He quieted down and went back to bed.

The rest is history. Both us and the Hesketts were up multiple times that night checking the door. Isaiah was sound asleep - he'd been sleeping through the night only in the past month. We were thankful for the rest.

I got up and headed home to get ready for work about 7:15. We were going to get the kids dressed and then grab a quick bite to eat since Tim didn't have tons of food the kids would eat. My cell rang just as I was getting in the shower. Lee Anne shared the godawful news. I was in the car and there in minutes. Isaiah was gone. There was nothing we could do. It was our worst nightmare come true.

There is an autopsy being completed now. We do not know what happened, but we suspect he had a massive seizure in the middle of the night. He had never had a night seizure before - believe me, we spent many nights looking at him to make sure. It was just his time. We are totally confused, but not surprised since we had played out that scene a thousand times. Playing it out and living it are two completely different things and I assure you the latter is much, much worse.

Helping to satisfy the question everyone has, "how did it happen" is the point of this post. Lee Anne wants to make sure people know that this is what happened. She already read a few inaccuracies from blog posts, etc. I have assured her that it is a natural thing to ask when someone dies. We understand.

Thank you for the prayers. Thank you for the outreach. There are not enough tears, but we live in hope of mercy from the powerful and everlasting God.

Isaiah's Services

We will celebrate the life of Isaiah Lee Stone on Thursday morning, May 20, at St. Luke's United Methodist Church in Oklahoma City at 10:00 a.m.

Isaiah's Godfather, Aaron Jack, wrote a beautiful post yesterday about Isaiah and their relationship:

http://www.aaronandallisonjack.blogspot.com/

In lieu of flowers, please send any contributions to:

Isaiah Lee Stone Fund
Youth Leadership Oklahoma
5500 N. Western
Suite 142
Oklahoma City, OK 73118

Thank you for the continued prayers and support. We absolutely love hearing from everyone, even if we are unable to return calls and emails right now.

Love,
Renzi, Lee Anne and Jackson

Isaiah Soars

Isaiah Lee Stone June 15, 2009 - May 17, 2010

Isaiah 40:28-31

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

²⁹ He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.

³⁰ Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;

³¹ but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah

Our Pool is Boiling and Other Thoughts about Keeping Life Interesting

Lee Anne and I had a great weekend celebrating our anniversary sans kids at our lake house. This was the first time we had been back at our lake house since the renovations after the huge pipe bursting incident in January. We came home at 3:30 p.m. today and at 4 p.m., this...is what happened.

To sum it up, huge hail storm and thunderstorm starts at 4:00 p.m. Both boys are napping when it really starts hailing bad. The storm woke both boys up at the exact same time and thank God it did. Right after Renzi and I met in the hallway with both boys we started hearing horrible sounds of glass breaking and we beelined for Renzi's closet where we rode out the storm. All six of our skylights and a couple of windows are all completely busted out. Water was pouring in everywhere.

Luckily, my little brother showed up and Renzi and Matt recruited Tim and the three boys got to work setting up tarp and trying to clean up as best they could. Our house is not "live able" right now, so we are camping out at the Hesketts' house down the street. We have filed our insurance claim and right now as I write this, Service Masters is at our house cleaning up.

We are so thankful that no one was hurt and that our house is still standing. We are all ok. It is just one more way to make our life interesting. Because, apparently, someone thinks our life is boring. :)

Good night all!!!

Update on my mom and Isaiah

My mom made it through her triple bypass yesterday and was such a fighter!!! As soon as she was moved to ICU she wanted that ventilator OUT. She did so well that they took it out around 4 p.m. yesterday and she immediatley started cracking jokes with the nurses. She didn't have the best night last night because of some pain and discomfort, but this morning she finally got her pain under control and has been moved to a regular room. She is even sitting up in a recliner, eating lunch and griping at me about what I am wearing and asking me why I don't have lipstick on. (Looks like we are back to normal :)

Hoping that her progress continues and that she will continue to heal well and fast so she can go home. My stepsister Sarah started a Care Calendar for her. It is such a neat idea!!! Here is the link: http://www.carecalendar.org/logon/39797 The security code is: 39797 and the passcode is: 6226

Thanks again for the prayers for my sweet mommy!

*In other news....Isaiah started having a runny nose this weekend and was tugging on his ears. I took him yesterday afternoon to a new ENT that we saw the week prior who specializes in the sinus cavity. He confirmed that Isaiah has an ear infection in the left ear and the left tube has fallen out and is not working. He did a "snot" test on Isaiah's snot (GROSS!) and he has suggested that we schedule a surgery for him to have his adnoids out, as well as replace the left ear tube and take the right ear tube out and put a new one in. It is a quick 20 minute surgery and he will have be under anethesia. We have scheduled this for Wednesay, May 26th. The doctor said that given Isaiah's history of ear infections and seizures that this is the best idea to keep him healthy. My poor baby!!!! This is the least of our worries and it's nice knowing that we can actually do something to fix our baby. :) Recovery time is literally one or two days and he will be back to his normal busy self!

Living Now

As people, we tend to spend inordinate amounts of time looking towards the future and remembering the past. We should consider spending more time living now. This past weekend, I (Renzi) had several of my best friends in to town to celebrate one friend's birthday and the impending birth of a son for another. It is always fun to see these guys.

I'm reminded, however, that it is important to keep "remember when" conversations to the exception, not the rule when getting together with old friends. Have you ever experienced that? Of course it is in our nature to think back to happy times. My experience says that "happy times" are just like today - mixed with good and bad. Our brains tend to only remember the good times (or the really terrible).

What was great about this past weekend was we spent an afternoon "remembering when" and then spent a nice evening at dinner making new memories.

With a mother battling a serious health issue, a mother in law coming out of open heart surgery, an assistant at work trying to recover from a major surgery, a new office opening for my growing business and Isaiah's daily drama - our "here and now" has been pretty spotty.

All of that said, I "remember when" it was all going great just a short time ago. Everyone was healthy. Business was manageable. Friends were close. Lee Anne and I went out to dinner by ourselves more.

The lesson here is simple; be grateful for today. Make memories today. Ask for forgiveness today. Remember "when" sometimes. Anticipate tomorrow sometimes. But embrace the gifts of each day in the present.

My mom....

Tomorrow morning my mom is having triple bypass surgery. She went to a cardiologist last week because of shortness of breath and because of an EKG that was not normal. Friday she had an angiogram and she will have her surgery tomorrow morning at 7:30 a.m. Please pray for complete recovery and for her doctors. She will be at Integris and in ICU for a couple of days following the surgery. Thanks for the prayers!

Lee Anne

What we've been up to this weekend....

Wow. Greatest weekend to date. Not even kidding.

Friday we cooked dinner, played outside, watched the Thunder game and everyone slept for 10 hours or more.

Saturday we had pancake breakfast made by Renzi and then we set out to go shopping for furniture for our house and the lake house! We made some super fun purchases...I am posting some pics of our new couch, coffee tabe/ottoman and our new chair. The couches that used to be in our living room are now going to the lake. We also went to a fabulous antique store called, "The Rink" in Bethany. Have any of you been there? It's incredible. It is where the old ice skating rink used to be off of Rockwell. I know you at least went to a birthday party once in your life there if you are from OKC! We purchased this amazing buffet and a 1950's diner style kitchen table for the lake. It's awesome. I will post pics of those sometime soon. Then, we came home after a long day of shopping (the boys did GREAT!), had taco night and the boys went to bed and Renzi and I...wait for it....we....got to....watch...a MOVIE! Duh duh dun.....We haven't done that in forever. We watched "Up in the Air." Okay movie, but I think we could have watched anything and would have had fun just because we were watching a movie. Oh and to top the day off....I couldn't find my phone for the longest time Saturday afternoon. Then, I found it. In the toilet. Thanks Isaiah!

We had another great night of sleep by everyone Saturday night and we got up Sunday and went to church. What a wonderful message from Bob Long today! He talked about how when things in life are hard....that sometimes you have to serve others through your grief to help you find your grace moments. We came home from church and played outside, went to the Edmond Arts Festival and Renzi cooked a fabulous briskit dinner. Then the boys had a dance party (yes, that's what we do here at the Stone house. We dance and sing. :) Don't judge on the song Jackson is singing too. He saw Jason Derulo on American Idol a couple of weeks back and is obsessed with this song), and Jackson talked Isaiah into pushing him on his bike. I have two videos of these exact things that I have uploaded onto this post. I swear, my boys are the funniest kids ever.

Thank you Lord for a much needed relaxing fun filled weekend!

Here's to a good week to all!

Lee Anne