and then i went to utah. i like my familia.

after the graveside memorial we had a grand time at "dude ranch cafe" where they had the best complimentary cones that i loved but wished they would have told us about them beforehand because if i had known then i wouldn't have bought that weird and much too runny chocolate shake! 

we also spent some time at my grandpa's house that day. i love my grandpa's house and always feel happy when i get to be there.

something you should know is i have always thought i was exactly 5' 5". i have always liked this and felt happy i wasn't any taller. well. my 5' 5" dreams have come crashing down and the picture above is proof.   i guess in those ten years of not measuring myself i grew an inch and am now 5' 6"!  i don't like this, not one bit.  

anyway.

 while in utah i got to have some other nice family times like getting to go to the once-a-month sunday night fhe! i was so happy when i realized i would be home for it and just ate up every second. 

i loved being around all my babies so much! life is way better with them around.

i also spent some time at my nephew's baseball games and tending becky's babes. i really enjoyed having so many little people to take pictures of again! they were all being very nice to me and loving me way more than usual so that was also something i really enjoyed. 

"korby give megan a puppy dog"

i even got the privilege of attending kamden's pre-school graduation. bless his heart he hated it so bad (he is sitting on his teacher's lap in tears) but we all really enjoyed it anyway. aaaand the picture below is nephew jett being none other than aladdin! i really picked a great week to come, so much was going on and i got to be a part of all of it! 

i also got to take pictures of kim's family and watch her try to have a leg war with scott in all of her pregnant glory.  it was AWESOME. 

and and aaaaand like i was saying before, for some reason they were all loving me lots! i slept over at kim's house one night and woke up to kamden snuggled up right next to me and then he even sat on my lap while we watched one of his tv shows without any sort of bribe or anything!  it was a glorious morning that i made kim document because i could barely believe it was happening. 

the day before i headed back to boston i spent the entire morning/afternoon/evening with emmy lou. she needed to go to the provo temple before she turned 16 (to hit her goal of going to every temple in utah) and i was supposed to take her last year so we finally made it happen. we also made a day of the whole experience and went to all the places i miss eating at. we hit up kneaders for breakfast, j dawgs for lunch,  got some shaved ice (the east coast doesn't know what that is), and then got some sushi like an hour later because i just had to go to sakura as well. emmy was on board for most of it except the sushi..which i was secretly happy about because then i got that geisha roll all to myself! it was a very nice day and i feel like it is weird that my nieces and nephews are getting old but way great at the same time because they are the best and i like that i get to not only be their aunt but also their friend.

that night i said my goodbyes, took unfortunately yellowish-orange pictures with janie and lilly, and laughed at how sad janie was over korbin eating her popcorn. 

(janie gets the sads quite a bit as you can see here, here, here, and here)

anyway. kind of a weird post? but i just wanted to remember all of the random very normal moments of the trip because those were the moments that made it so nice. i loved just getting to sit and talk to my siblings and parents or hang out with my older tots and play with my younger ones. i loved getting to go to fhe and the games and plays and graduations and just felt really content and happy to be a part of everything. 

and then i went to utah. graveside memorial.

back in january, as my flight landed in boston, i turned on my phone and had received a text from becky. it read, 

"we saw the specialist this afternoon and it doesn't look good for this little guy..he has a bilateral cleft pallet and pretty bad brain and heart problems - those 3 combined point toward trisomy 13 or 18...it's a miracle he has made it to 20 weeks..There is a good chance i could miscarriage and if he is born alive he will probably only live a few hours..we appreciate your prayers and fasting and continue to trust our our heavenly Father from here on out"

i was on the second row of the plane but couldn't bring myself to get up so i just sat in my seat and sobbed as everyone else exited the plane. i felt so sad that i just flew 2,500 miles away from my family at a time when we needed to be with each other most. 

as the months went on i stayed glued to becky's blog for updates and anything that could be seen as good news. as everything settled in we all became more and more hopeful that somehow things would work themselves out and felt comforted that baby kevin would be okay. we had the faith and knowledge from previous experiences that Heavenly Father has, does, and will continue to perform miracles.  

as may came closer i thought about going home and decided to only go home if baby kevin didn't make it. i started to wonder if maybe i should book a plane ticket but my faith and feelings of comfort and peace that everything would be okay kept me from doing so. 

on may 10th the excitement began to build as my siblings and i exchanged fb messages to each other about becky being induced and how we wished we could all be there. it was a fun and distracting day at work as we all looked forward to his arrival. i hadn't heard anything for awhile and had just gotten off work so i decided to just call my mom and see how things were going. 

she answered and told me that becky had him around noon. it wasn't until he was delivered that they were finally able to see his face and were almost positive he had trisomy 13. the doctors and nurses left them alone so that they could be with baby kevin for as long as they could. he lived an hour and a half and passed away two hours before i called my mom. 

i remember walking and listening as my mom told me all of this and had a similar reaction as i did on the plane four months earlier. i just cried and cried as i walked the rest of the way home, completely confused by this outcome. for a moment i thought about not going home and wondered if it would be easier/cheaper if i just stayed but i couldn't have done that. i needed to be with my sister an family so by the end of the night my flight was booked, the kind people at work had not only given me time off but also some bereavement,  and i was making plans to return to utah the next week. 

saturday of the following week found our immediate family in malad, idaho attending the graveside memorial of our precious baby kevin. this day was so bitter sweet. bitter because we had really hoped he would make it and sweet because we recognized that he did make it and fought so hard for every minute he was here. the results came back that he had full trisomy 13 and it was an absolute miracle becky didn't miscarriage and even more of a miracle that he lived as long as he did. 

something else that was sweet was all seven of us siblings were in the same place at the same time which hadn't happened in ten years! we kept thinking my wedding would do it for us but since that wasn't happening, baby kev made it happen instead.  i love him for that. 

 i've felt bad for being away for so much of this but i was grateful for the opportunity to come home, meet kevin david beck jr, be with family, and - this might sound weird - bring my camera to document it. i couldn't change the outcome of what happened but i could help preserve the experience and our memories of it. now as any photographer knows, it is a bit of a sacrifice to photograph events you want to be a part of (as a person experiencing it rather than photographing others experiencing it) - but looking back on these pictures i feel grateful for that sacrifice and the ability to do this sort of thing for my family. 

baby k's graveside memorial : 5.19.2012

baby kev has made a lasting impact on all of us. our family has grown in faith, strength, and love and we are changed for the better because his life has touched (and will continue to touch) ours. 

his graveside memorial was beautiful. the music, prayers, and words that were spoken were perfect and i'm sure he enjoyed receiving so many blue balloons :)

  for more details, becky wrote a beautiful post about the day here. 

i'm so grateful for the knowledge that families are eternal and that as we do our best to live in accordance with God's plan for us, we will be with him again. we are sad we had to say goodbye to him so soon in this life but we look forward to reuniting with him in the next. we love you baby k! thank you for joining our family, we are so lucky to have you.  

and then i went to utah.

it is kind of weird to blog about this since everyone who reads this blog already knows all these things so i guess this will be extra journal-y because looking back in my real journal i only wrote a half page of the whole event (but of course left many blank pages after that half page to write more) and it definitely deserves proper documentation. 

first flight from boston to chicago: realized way too late that i picked the WORST seat and felt so miserable the entire flight 

second flight from chicago to utah: decided to sit in the seat with lots of leg room to move around and felt slightly guilty that i didn't offer to switch spots with longest legs man (who actually needed all that room) sitting next to me. 

immediately after i arrived i had some much needed sister/zupa time and then beelined it over to becky's house to love on lilly bug because i missed her so dang much!

this picture might be lame but i just wanted to document the niceness of sitting in my parents living room with (some of) my sisters. with texas on the left, boston, utah, and then washington on the right - it always feels like a miracle when we get to be together and ordinary moments like this just feel so special and not ordinary at all.

as most of you know the reason i went to utah was because my nephew passed away (after an hour and a half of being born -he ended up having full trisomy 13) and i just needed to be with my family and support my sister. we had all hoped and had faith that he would live and the problems he was born with would be worked out but Heavenly Father's plan for him was a little different. Finding out that becky had delivered him and he had already passed away in the same conversation was such a difficult thing to hear. we had all felt such peace about the situation and interpreted that as meaning he would live and be alright. i was honestly shocked that he passed away (what felt like to me) so quickly. i knew that the only way i would go to utah at this time was if he didn't make it so booking my flight was heartbreaking. as i thought about going to utah i struggled with the realization that i would be attending a graveside memorial for a nephew i never even got to meet.

..so when i landed in utah and found out becky wanted us to go see him (at the funeral home) i was overcome with gratitude. all i had wanted was to be able to see him.  

becky/dad/mom/rick i hope that it is okay that i post this picture, i think it is a good portrayal of what an emotional experience this was for all of us. we all got a turn to hold him and i think we all just cried the entire time. tears of sadness that his little spirit was no longer in his precious body, tears of gratitude that we got to hold him and love on him when none of us thought we would, and more tears of gratitude for the plan of salvation and knowing that this little guy would be a part of our family forever. i will never forget those few moments i had with him, even with the problems his little body had he seemed perfect to me. 

after giving ourselves some time to take in everything that happened earlier, we went with all the girls (including my cousin erica and my dad, lucky for him he gets invited to all events) to get some frozen yogurt. i will never understand why my family is so obsessed with that stuff but it has become a fun little tradition so approve of it.  

we sat in the corner of that place for a good two or three hours (sorry u-swirl) and just talked and laughed and visited. somehow we started going through everyone's purses and i just loved the surprises they pulled out. kim had a big band of candy, mindy had her lego men, becky had my little pony, a little people cow, and a rubber ducky, and natalie had some of her jewels that she sells haha. it felt so nice to just laugh about random things and be with each other, it was definitely therapeutic.  

the day after i arrived i attended the funeral of my cousin's son. ryan was only 14 years old and passed away tragically after going into cardiac arrest two weeks prior (his obituary can be found here). being at his funeral felt a lot like going to brynn's viewing the year before - it felt like a wonderful person was just taken way too soon but i felt grateful to learn more about them and learn from them as people told stories about the way they lived life. i didn't know brynn or ryan incredibly well but they are both the type of person you just know is okay because they lived life fully. at one point ryan's uncle asked all of ryan's classmates to stand up and then asked all those who had been influenced by his life to stand as well. it was so powerful to look around the room and see so many people standing, i'm sure ryan had no idea how many lives he touched. 

this picture is probably so inappropriate considering it is in the chapel but we had to document the recreation of our childhood and going to church - there was just so many of us that we had to cram ourselves onto the bench! this picture would be better if our sister becky was in it too (at this moment we were going on day 2 of all the siblings being in town and we still hadn't gotten all seven of us in the same room)

i appreciated that they had a little family luncheon afterwards because i got to catch up with cousins and brothers and my sweet grandpa. that picture of him holding my hand is slightly creepy but i just wanted to remember the sweetness of that moment. he is the only grandparent i have left so i feel like every second i get to spend with him is precious. 

sibs and parents and dots for ryan. 

his classmates wanted to do a fundraiser so they decided to sell those dots for a dollar and then kids could write a message to ryan on them. i was impressed by their thoughtfulness and desire to help his family in this definite time of need.

after the funeral i got in some more niece and nephew time which i just loved. i sure did (and do again) miss those tots.

the day ended with writing our letters to baby kevin in preparation for his graveside memorial (on my taiwanese stationary which i felt happy about) and an adult pizza night with my parents and siblings (which was very nice) 

aaaand two days is about all i can do for tonight (it turns out blogging about it is just as emotionally draining as when it all happened) but i will post more about my utah trip soon.