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21
Jul

In Memory of Inara Michelle

categories Not Twilight Related, Thanks    

On July 16, 2009 at 5:27 PM our family was graced with the birth of our daughter, Inara Michelle Schade.  She was a beatiful little girl, and brought joy to her parents and older siblings.  She touched our hearts immediately.  Her older sisters were overjoyed to have a baby sister to fawn over and love and help raise in this world.  We all looked forward to our lives being blessed by this little miracle.

Unfortunately, Inara was not born with a perfectly functional heart.  We found, shortly after her birth, that she had congenital heart disease.  More specifically, she was born with a birth defect that affected both her Aortic and Pulmonic Valves (see diagram).

The Pulmonic Valve allows blood to exit to the Pulonary Arteries and into the lungs.  The Aortic Valve allows blood to flow into the Aortic Arteries and from there to the rest of the body.  Inara’s valves were malformed, too thick, and too small.  Because both valves were affected, there were no surgical options available to us to repair the damage.  I’ll not go into the details of why a transplant was not an option, but suffice it to say Inara was too fragile for that.  Simply put, there was nothing that we could do.  The only thing keeping her alive at this point was the ventilator and the large doses of medication used to keep her heart pumping.  But that would only last so long, and eventually Inara would begin to suffer a lot of pain.

Thus, we made the decision not to prolong Inara’s life any longer than was necessary.  Being LDS, it was important for us to give her a name and a blessing, which is normally given to infants shortly after their birth.  We also wanted to ensure that her oldest brothers, who were on a camping trip at the time of her birth and not immediately available, had the opportunity to meet her.  We made arrangements for the boys to leave their camping trip early, and within a few hours, we had the entire family together.  We were able to be with her as she slipped from this life.  Inara Michelle returned to her Heavenly Father at 9:32 PM on July 18, 2009.

Our family will be forever touched by her short life.  We will never forget her, nor the impact she had made on us.  Her spirit is strong, and we know for certain that she now lives with God in the Celestial Kingdom of Heaven.  We are saddened by her untimely departure, but know that she is safe and happy in her new home.  We look forward to seeing her again in God’s due time.

Inara Michelle – we love you with all of our strength, spirits, and hearts.

-Brian, Sharon, Steven, Braden, Leah, Rebecca, and Adam Schade

27
Nov

Happy Thanksgiving

categories Thanks    

I do not know how it is in other countries, but in the United States the Christmas holiday season more or less causes mass chaos for the general public.  This is because the general public has toe moss for brains.  If you don’t believe me, all you have to do is enter into any major toy store and watch full-grown, normally mentally stable adults shopping for Christmas presents for their children.  The adults will do everything in their power to ensure that their children have the latest in child entertainment technology, including but not limited to cold-blooded murder.  This in spite of the scientifically-proven fact that your regular average child installed in your average American family prefers playing with the packaging that the toy came in over the toy itself.  Just ask anyone above the age of forty to recount "The Cabbage Patch Kid Hysteria of 1983". You will get war stories so terrifying and unbelivable you would think you were listening to a work of fiction.  But you wouldn’t be.  Those things actually happened.

To this day, I fear the Cabbage Patch Kids because of the flashbacks.

Still, there is one becon of opportunity for those of us here in the United States which, if we are lucky, allows us to redeem ourselves, if only by the fact that it allows us to draw our attention away from buying stuff for others and focusing completely and solely on ourselves.  That becon of hope is, of course, Thanksgiving.  Not many people realize this, but the term "Thanksgiving" has its roots in the latin terms Than, meaning "appreciation", and ksgiving, meaning "for all the food that someone else prepared and on which we are about to gorge ourselves".  Of course, only in America could we come up with a holiday that actually encourages us to become slovenly pigs (as if we’re not that way any other day of the year).

Some people have become transfixed with the idea that Thanksgiving is an opportunity for us to sit down and ruminate on all of the blessings that we have received throughout the year.  To not only ponder those blessings but be thankful for them as well.  Then gorge ourselves on turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce.

Even if you aren’t the type to consider your gifts, most of us do take this opportunity to express kindness and goodwill to one another.  We would like to continue with that particular tradition.  From all of us here at Twilight Teez, we wish you a happy and safe Thanksgiving.  We do hope you will take this opportunity to consider everything that you have received and to take special care to thank those who have made an especially considerable difference in your lives.  We want to take a moment to thank in particular those who are currently serving our country in one capacity or another and may be away from their families as we head into this holiday season.  You have our honor and our support.

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and no matter where you are, we hope that you will be safe and always remember that Slovenly Pigs would be an excellent name for a rock band.

-Brian