One more Week to Live

Last year, the first Saturday of April fell on April 5, 2025. It was the day my worst nightmare began—but it was also the day we witnessed the mercy of God in our lives.

That morning, we rushed to the hospital with Jadzia. Shortly after waking up, she lost consciousness. We made it to the emergency room, where she died—and by the grace of God, the medical team was able to revive her. God gave us exactly one more week with her.

When I began my project “Our Time on Earth; Living the Dash, Freezing Seconds that Never Stopped,” I wanted to capture moments of human life through photography, using intentional camera movement as a metaphor for time—the kind that never stops. Since turning 50, I’ve been deeply aware of time, feeling like I was halfway through life, still holding onto dreams, goals, places I wanted to see, and things I wanted to accomplish. I worried I was running out of time.

The irony of life is that my baby, my beautiful daughter, at such a young age, was the one running out of time.

I have never felt a slap in my face so hard as the one I felt last year—a pain I know will stay with me forever.

Her clock stopped on April 5, 2025, around noon. But God gave us one more week. In that week, time seemed to slow down, almost as if it paused to give us the gift of being with her. The most important people were there. She was more alive than ever—she smiled, she praised the Lord, she cried with us, she loved more deeply than ever, and she told Jesus she was ready.

I was not ready—and I don’t think I ever will be. Who is ever ready to lose a child?

Since then, I cry. I cry every day. I cannot get used to her absence. But here I am, still walking, still trying to find joy and hold on to dreams that seem to hide from me. Yes, I cry—but I wipe my tears and draw strength from the One who saved her, the One who called her.

One day, I will see her again. One day, I will see my Jesus face-to-face. And He will be the one to wipe away all my tears and all my pain.

Someday, we will all be there—some sooner than others. That is the reality. Our time on earth is ephemeral, just a moment. We all have a dash between our birth and the day we leave this world—we just don’t know when that second date will come.

We want to live. We have dreams. We want to accomplish things. But I have learned that time with our loved ones is what matters most.

Learning to live with the empty space left by someone we love is not easy. It is painful. And that is the reality.