We received our tragic phone call on October 5th, and immediately flew out to be with Travis.
We presently live on the Whippo farm. Across the soybean field from us is Wally and Lynn's home. Their kids, Ellie, Joey, and Audrey love to come to our trailer to visit with Aunt Debbie. She plays cards with them and they drink tea together! :-) They are Travis' youngest cousins.
They were more affected by Travis' condition than most people realized. So, one day, Ellie wrote a note to our post-lady and she and Joey placed it in the mailbox. It was a request:
Dear Mail-Lady,
If you are a Christian, would you please pray for my cousin, Travis.
He is in the hospital and is very sick.
Thank you very much!
Ellie
Lynn was unaware that they had done this. But the next day a response note was left in the mailbox and Lynn found it:
Dear Ellie,
I am so very sorry to hear about your cousin. I will pray for him and all who love him.
Take care sweety.
Love,
Lynda
(your mail lady)
Here's a picture of Lynn and Wally's kids:
Around that same time, I received a text from our niece, Barbie:
"Aunt Debbie and Uncle Hal,
It's little Barbie (Mahosky Hagen). Liz (Sargent) explained to Lily this morning what is happening with Trav. A little confused, Lily asked Liz a couple of questions (along the line of why this is happening when Trav is younger than his parents). She asked Liz to see a picture of Trav and Liz found a picture of him involving a baseball game. She then asked if she could draw a pic of Trav for his mom and dad.
Not quite understanding the entire situation, her precious mind clearly understood that you will miss him.
Love, Barbie
One more.
On October 13, four days after Travis died, Liz (Sargent) sent me the following Facebook message:
So Zak just walked upstairs to brush his teeth and said 'mom, today in the car I asked God if Travis was in Heaven and He said yes'....I said 'oh yeah?', he said "yep, i just closed my eyes and put my hands together and said 'God is he in heaven or the bad word and God said 'He's with me'."....Just wanted to share.
The following is a picture of Justin and Liz and their three children: Zak, Lily and Allison.
When bad things happen, don't leave children out of the equation. They have an amazing capacity not only for understanding, but also for responding with amazing levels of compassion! How thankful Debbie and I are today for the love-messages of these precious little ones!
