Faith's service

Faith's celebration of life met all my expectations. Jeff and Laurie Jennings, the Pastor and his wife, did a beautiful job of conducting the service and helping us make everything go smoothly. I am so grateful! They are special people and I hope to continue a friendship with them from this day on. Thank you for helping to make such a sad day, more about the love, friendship, strength and love....how we all make a difference no matter how long or short we are here on earth....it was exactly what I wanted to get across. It was no accident our paths crossed.

Other people I want to give special thanks to are:

Jeff and Laurie Jennings: As mentioned above, thanks for helping meet all my expectations for celebrating the life of my unique and unforgettable daughter.
Jeff and Nancy Baggett: They made the DVD, helped set up and just offered general support. Nancy is my best friend and I couldn't ask for a better one.
Mike and Desiree: Thank you for the beautiful tribute posters of Faith. I will cherish them forever! And, thank you for introducing us to Jeff and Laurie. What a blessing. We have a special connection with you two that I hope to continue.
Miranda: You have an amazing voice and I am so appreciative of you singing "Borrowed Angels"
Trina: Thank you for speaking, your support and the awesome brownies!!!!! Your support and knowledge and comforting ways make you someone I will love forever.
Lindsay: Your speech was lovely, you knew Faith so well and I am grateful you were in her life.
My aunt: Thank you for helping me get the house ready and dealing with my stress. Also, for making us laugh so hard after the funeral that it took my mind completely off the sadness. You are my "weirdo" and I Love you.
Gemma: Thank you, thank you for adding my special yellow butterfly. My mural now represents my two beautiful angels....one a black butterfly, the other yellow.
Linda Gordon: Thank you for helping with the yard and for loving Faith and coming back into our lives.
Pam: Thank you for taking care of Karen so I could concentrate on Faith's celebration. Thank you, also, for being so wonderful to Faith....reading her stories, singing with her, picking flowers, etc...she loved you dearly. We are lucky to have you.
Andrea: Thank you for doing the raffle, starting the meals while we were in the hospital and for your general support and kindness. You are very special.
Turning Leaf Photography: The bookmarks were beautiful as were all our family pictures. Please use Michele, the owner, for your photography needs!!!
Kim F., Stephanie, Tom and Linda, Melissa, Glenda and many others....thank you for bringing food to help us out. There was plenty and it was all yummy.

To EVERYONE that came, I am SO grateful for your presense and support!!!!!!!! Thank you to everyone that brought food, cards, made donations and especially spoke on Faith's behalf. I know it was a long trip for many of you and I am very grateful you still made it. Everyone there I think fondly of and it warms my heart that you were there to honor my special angel. I really think Faith would have loved the day.

Celia, Barb, Dr. Vlautin - thank you for taking the time out of your busy lives to pay tribute to Faith. I can't even express how much it means that you guys were here.

Celia, I have known you from the beginning of Faith's life and you have been there for us in so many ways. All the UCD staff knows how great you are, but it never hurts to hear it again. You have definitely found your calling in life and are such a great support for the heart families. I will never forget you and will miss seeing you.

Barb, you are now right there with Celia. I knew you in the PICU when you cared for Faith and now you are doing a fantastic job with the heart families as well. You were a huge support for us those two months while we were in the ICU and I thank you.

Dr. Vlautin...what can I say? You worked tirelessly on Faith and you never gave up on her in those first few weeks. We were not ready to lose Faith and you gave us two more months with her. Two more months we desperately needed to allow us to eventually let go. You, too, are one of those special people that have found their calling in life. You were a true blessing to us. Thank you. (and for you to show up at her service....it just means more than I can express)

Kathy, thank you for your lovely prescence and for giving Faith joy with your special voice everytime she was in the hospital. You are a unique individual and our family will always remember you and how much Faith enjoyed music time with you.

I want to thank other medical professionals that were not there:

Dr. Loomis and Sutter Pediatrics. They were always accomodating to us and Faith loved going to their office. Dr. Loomis was not only Faith's primary care doctor, but is a warm hearted man and felt like a friend.
Dr. Choy and the entire cardiac specialty staff. Dr. Choy, you know how special you are to me, and just like with Dr. Vlautin, you were a critical part of why we got to enjoy Faith longer than originally expected. I think extremely highly of you and will miss seeing you.
Dr. Raff . What can I say, except you are just an amazing doctor. You have energy like no one I have ever seen, are smarter than anyone else I know and you are just incredible. I always appreciated your honesty and I thank you for doing such a great job on her heart that she was able to keep going a little longer for us. UCD is fortunate to have you.
Linda Tennyson. You tried so hard to deal with all of Faith's issues as challenging as they were. Thank you for being so great to us, always returning phone calls and for coming to say hello while we were there. It meant a lot.
Pediatric GI Surgery Team. I know that you didn't really want to "explore" on Faith. But, I appreciate the fact that you did and appreciate the hard work you put into trying to keep Faith here.
Nurses and Staff on the Pediatric floor . The Pediatric floor has a whole different energy and there are a lot of special fun nurses, child life specialists, MUSIC THERAPIST, etc. Faith always enjoyed her time with you!!!
ALL PICU doctors and nurses. You are all amazing and work so hard! You helped us through a very difficult time and did it with compassion, respect and love. The PICU team is a group of dedicated professionals that do an extremely tough job. However, they have the best of the best!

So, now, for me...so I can remember what my tribute was to my special little Faithy...I am going to write the speech I said. Ten years from now I would like to remember. (A funeral is like a wedding. You hardly remember what happened, what was said, and you wish at the end you had more time to speak to certain people. I guess when something is so emotional and overwhelming that is bound to happen.)

So here is my Tribute to my Faith:

Sometimes life doesn't make any sense:
Why was a child given to another couple when this woman already had two other children? Why would she not want to keep her third? Well, maybe it was to allow this child (me) to have a positive adoptive experience to allow me to want to do the same for another...

Sometimes life doesn't make any sense:
Why did I decide to work at a care home for medically fragile children when I thought my calling was to be a teacher? Maybe to meet a child that needed a permanent home that I would fall in love with (Andrew) and lead me to a place where I would become a foster parent and allow other children to enter my home...

Sometimes life doesn't make any sense:
Why did Placer County keep calling us to take Faith when we were not looking to adopt another child? Why was my husband so open to taking this child when she had so many complications and he was set against having anymore permanent children?
Because this child was meant to be ours...

Sometimes life doesn't make any sense:
Why did God give me this child that not only had so many medical challenges but for almost 2 years did nothing but cry. I rarely slept, I lost 20 pounds, and was always at the hospital or doctors office.
I will admit, I am not the most patient of people. I have Portuguese in me. But, for some reason with Faith, I had all the patience in the world...

Sometimes life doesn't make any sense:
Whey did this child who was unhappy most of the time all of a sudden become the child that loved medical appointments? I mean, at one point, she was the child no one wanted to get close to -they stayed back and gave Faith her "Faith bubble" of space. But, it was like a flip was switched one day and she all of a sudden wanted to go to the hospital. She loved to go see Dr. Loomis and Dr. Choy! She couldn't wait to get in the car and would bug me until it was time to go.
I think it was a lesson for us at how you can turn a negative into a positive. She showed us how it is all in your attitude...

Sometimes life doesn't make any sense:
Why did my mom get lung cancer and leave us so quickly eventhough she didn't want to go? Why was her death so tragic?
I think it was #1 for her to get used to her place in Heaven to be ready to receive Faith and #2 it was for me to understand how important it is to have a peaceful death...

Sometimes life doesn't make any sense:
Why did Faith's heart surgery go so well, but everything else went so wrong?

This is something I don't have the answer to. I do know that events leading up to our final moments with Faith prepared us to allow Faith to have the peaceful death that Faith deserved. *(a special thank you to Cathy for that too :)- love to you)*

I am hoping, in time, that all this will too....make sense.

In the meantime, our family will forever cherish the happy moments Faith gave us. The unconditional love, strength and courage she showed. We are forever changed by Faith.

So, sometimes....no....life doesn't make any sense. But, all of a sudden, at some point, it might. Probably when you least expect it. That is what started the slogan of the two months Faith was fighting for her life of: "Keep Faith". Because you never know why some things happen or why you are given the challenges you are faced with. You just have to keep faith it will make sense one day.

But, for now, our family is putting one foot in front of the other and trying to learn to live without our precious Faith. However, we are a stronger family because of her and we will forever grateful for our "Borrowed Angel".

Shelly Duarte

And, now, this blog, will turn into about how the Duarte family continues to move on. It will focus on the other children that deserve just as much recognition. I have loved "meeting" you all through this incredible blogging world and hope to continue hearing from you. Still continue to "Keep Faith" through all of life's journeys and thank you for following and caring about our family.