It’s a universal question we ask each other whether we’re about to order a Latte or checking in on a friend after their daughter died. I can say that I’ve been in both situations now. By the way, when they ask “what’s a good name for the order?” I always say “oh, I dunno… let’s name it Julia.” This is a dad joke that has a 38% success rate.

How are you doing?

We follow the social script in both kinds of situations, though the second one is a bit more complicated. It depends on who’s asking and from what perspective. In rare cases, whether it’s a general query about your Monday or out of care and concern for mourners, “doing ok” works just fine. “Fine” is also an acceptable, albeit loaded, answer.

But no, I’m not doing ok. We’re not ok.

Sometimes my Apple Watch tries to run Amazon music and it doesn’t connect properly for some reason, perhaps because of a spat between corporate titans Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos. Every time I play a song on my phone, my watch pulls up the Amazon music icon, followed by a message that says “something went wrong.” And I mutter under my breath “I’ll say it has…”, which causes the barista to say “pardon?” and I say “oh, I dunno… Fredrick.” See, I’m pretending they’ve asked me to name the order the way a person might name a child. It’s a terrible dad joke that I highly recommend.

Her name, by the way, is Alexis. Was Alexis? No, that’s still her name, in the present tense, though she’s not with us at present. The child grew up and became an adult and almost reached her 20th birthday, a milestone that I assumed we’d easily reach. I always had a sense that Lexi would pass before me, but I didn’t think it would happen this suddenly. 20 minutes before she died, it took 4 medical staff to administer an injection to help her calm down. It’s not what took her life but it did temporarily calm her and give some level of comfort. No, she’s gone because of complications with her digestive system that, based on scans from the past, started developing 9 years ago but finally caught up with her.

I have to wonder if, the moment she realized she could no longer eat her favorite food — oatmeal with peanut butter — she figured it was time to go. I had already told Lexi that, if she saw the Lord, she’d be able to run to his arms and hear the best rendition of Wheels on the Bus. She took me up on that. It was one of only a few times when her strong will wasn’t strong enough to disobey her father and, in a moment of terrible beauty, run to her Father.

My job as her dad has changed. For the fist time in nearly 20 years, I don’t have to worry about who’s taking care of Lexi. I didn’t comprehend the amount of energy and attention that went into that until now. Piles of stress and motion that were dedicated to Lexi care now have nowhere to go, and I’m bouncing off the walls. Caring for a special needs kid is a glorious task, but it is stressful. Not having Lexi here is stressful, too. The difference is that all that stress suddenly has nowhere to go, and I find that exceedingly difficult right now.

When we left the hospital room for the last time, walking out proved difficult. Even though others carried the day to day of managing Lexi, she was still on my radar. For Brittany and I to leave her body there without a Torri or a Shirlene or Annie (to name only a few who took care of her over the years) was impossible. A floor nurse saw us as she walked by and came into the room. Britt said “I don’t know how to do this…” and the nurse embraced her and cried, too. We all cried as Nurse said that she has a child with severe special needs and understood. She promised to watch the door until they came to get her. It’s silly — it wasn’t like Lexi’s going to get up and leave or need water or someone to sing to her. I knew that here (points to head) but not here (points to heart).

We walked out, my wife and I, holding hands and making our way down the hall for the last time, in total shock. Lexi was gone, and our role as her parents shifted. I have comfort in knowing that she’s truly in good hands now, but the pain of the intangible cannot be ignored.

And here I sit, going through hundreds of pictures from age zero until a few days ago, wondering what I’m supposed to do now.

A few hours ago, when the sun was still up and our neighborhood was crackling with its nightly energies, I heard one of the neighbor kids singing “The Wheels on the Bus”, which caught my attention and brought me back to those early morning when I’d walk Lexi to her school bus, backpack and seatbelt harness properly fitted. Those daily driveway journeys gave me the same thought again and again: I would never walk my daughter down the aisle at her wedding. Instead, I had the daily honor of getting Lexi dressed for school and walking her down the driveway to her bus. When I see what some of my dad friends face with their daughters, I count it all joy that my job was, in many ways, considerably easier. I remind you, though, prayer warriors, that we have 4 boys yet to fully raise. So watch out.

How are you doing? Good question. We’re planning a memorial service for our daughter, which isn’t the way it was supposed to go. We hope you’ll be there and can get a glimpse of the joy and life that Lexi brought to our world. She was for me an implement of spiritual formation and an unmatched source of happy. Whether a full strength hug or a swat to my face, she had the power to instantly shift my mood, as if putting me in my place. With Lexi, it was all about perspective, because the wheels on the bus kept on going round and round even on the dark days.

This is a dark day infected by hope. So yeah, let’s name the order… Lexi.