On November 22, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, I received an email from my friends Neil and Anna Mammen announcing the birth of their second daughter, Caroline Lois. Other than a cleft palate Caroline seemed fine, and the happy couple were thankful and rejoicing.
But later that day a second email from Neil had URGENT in the subject line. Doctors discovered something wrong with the baby’s heart and kidneys. They feared that restricted blood flow also meant the possibility of brain damage. Neil wrote:
Caroline’s had trouble breathing all day and was put on a respirator and feeding tube. We are trusting her to God and His perfect will for her precious life.
Neil and Anna are evangelical Christians. They urged all of their friends to pray as the doctors tried to strengthen Caroline for possible heart surgery. But after a few days of hopeful stabilization, Caroline’s condition began to worsen. Neil wrote again on November 28:
Today was a very tough day for us. The doctor called and said that though she has stabilized, our darling Caroline’s kidneys are not improving and he is concerned that there is permanent damage to them. . . . He also confirmed that the MRI did show some brain damage.
We continued to pray for healing, but her health continued to worsen. On November 30th, a call came from the doctor that Caroline would likely die within a day. Neil wrote:
Caroline Lois is going to go home to her Lord and my Lord very soon. Perhaps tonight. We are selfishly trying to keep her here a bit longer, here in 4D space, perhaps an hour or two. . . The battle is not over. Keep praying. God exists and He is able. We now pray that His Sovereign Will is to heal her.
Despite the prayers of many and the persistent faith of Neil and Anna, there would be no healing. Caroline died in Neil’s arms at 1:10 A.M. on December 1.
Anna later wrote of that fateful call the day before:
I remember everything turning black and feeling like the bed was going to open up and swallow me. I felt my heart had been ripped from my chest and that I was free falling into the blackest abyss I could imagine. And I didn’t know what to do. I kept asking, ‘What do I do? I don’t know what to do? How can this happen? How will we go on?’
Neil held me and we cried and I sobbed. And then Neil started feeding me a life rope.
Feeding me lines of truth. He gently said,
“She’s not ours.”
“We don’t deserve her.”
“This happens everyday all over the world. We’re not special.”