Episode 358: The Conversation that Keeps Us

Payton loved rainbows. She knew all the colors, knew them in order, and would paint them perfectly every time. But she always added a pink line at the bottom, because she simply could not understand why pink was not already there. Every single rainbow she ever painted had that extra pink line. The Friday before she died, she painted one more. It was still drying on the easel at her Christian school when her class came in on Monday morning. Payton was five years old, a ray of sunshine with bright blue eyes and blonde hair, the kind of little girl who would run up to someone she had never met, say hi, give them a hug, and be ready to go be best friends. She cheered for her little brother Blake when he struggled to hit milestones. She gave her toys away to neighbors because that was just who she was. She asked endless questions about heaven, about the colors no one on earth has ever seen yet. On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, she was struck and killed by a neighbor's car while walking her little brother around their quiet neighborhood circle. Holly is an ER nurse and a paramedic. She ran CPR on her own daughter in the entryway of their home, called her hospital to get the trauma team ready, and walked through the trauma bay knowing exactly where she was going. She was usually the calm during someone else's storm. That day, she could not be that for her own child. Payton was gone that afternoon. In this conversation, Holly speaks with remarkable honesty about the six months since, about navigating grief alongside a new baby, about walking away from a career she has loved since she was eighteen, about the foundation (Payton's Pink Rainbow Project) she and her husband started in Payton's name, and about a faith that has been shaken to its core, but has not let go. She tells God every single day: I am so mad at you. But I am going to remain faithful. Some days she does not believe the words when she says them. She says them anyway. And her friend asked her something that stopped her cold. When you are doubting God, who are you actually talking to? If you did not believe He was real, you would not be in conversation at all. I shared something I carried early in my own grief. As long as I was angry at God, that meant I believed He existed. And as long as I believe He exists, I am okay. The conversations may be cruddy. But as long as we are still having them, we are okay. That is the conversation that keeps us.