I spoke at a family camp 10 or so years ago and talked about how my daughter Lexi is non-verbal yet a great communicator. I talked about the heartache of never having a “regular” conversation with her, but balanced that with the joy of communicating with Lexi in ways she and I both understood. I did most of the talking (she was a great listener) and she would do the looks, the demands for songs, the customary request for oatmeal and peanut butter. Mourning Lexi is something I’ve been doing all her life, from the moment she first appeared at the hospital and I knew something was up. Nobody on the medical team said anything, but I knew right away. It would later be confirmed that she had Down Syndrome. Perhaps they knew all along and didn’t want to ruin the moment. I’ll never know.

At that camp I shared all this, talked about other stuff (they probably don’t remember what and neither do I), and we closed the service with song and prayer. A man came up to me to chat afterwards. He thanked me for talking about Lexi and shared that he had a vision of me and her someday reuniting in heaven, with her running to me and shouting “Hi, Dad!” He shared with such conviction that I thought twice before kindly shuffling that comment off to the side — admittedly, people say some pretty bizarre things when it comes to special needs kids. This time was different and, not just plausible, but inspiring.

Fast forward to now: Lexi has passed, is in the arms of Jesus, and I find myself asking again and again: can you make it so I can hear her? Can I see her for a minute? Or even a brief second?

Can you make it so I can hear her talk to me?

This prayer hasn’t been answered. I’ve had a couple of dreams about Lexi, but she’s her normal Lexi self, wearing her big grey coverall pajamas. One night, it was a dream about her trying to get into my truck so we could go home. Another dream included her hanging out on the couch like she always did — happy, singing, and ignoring me because I wouldn’t give her a chip (or whatever I was eating at the time).

All normal, Lexi kind of stuff. No sentences. No revelations. No conversation. Just Lexi.

I suppose that’s what she’s like in heaven. I don’t know to what degree God fixes things, beyond the overarching idea that He makes all things new. Does that include mangled DNA strands weighed down with an extra chromosome? Will Autism be vanquished? These are the questions that run through my mind. Can a person still be the person they are if you change such defining characteristics about them? You could expand the palette of questions: will Grandpa be the grandpa I remember or some young man wearing a fedora hat, as all people of that era seemed to do at some point in their post-war era lifetimes? Will I have hair again? Will Lexi be the Lexi we know or the Lexi she was intended to be, pre fallen nature?

And, if I have hair, will she recognize me?

Who am I to ask for such a miracle (seeing Lexi now, not the hair thing). God is faithful, merciful, and provisional. He owes me nothing. But the question — the honest prayer — remains. Were God to answer the prayer for a Lexi sighting, what would change?

I was hanging around a Cabela’s once and saw my mom — yet she had died years earlier. It wasn’t actually her, just a person who looked a LOT like her. For a moment and from a distance, I imagined it was her (weird, I know) and that we drove together to look at, oh, I dunno, fishing equipment. It gave me peace yet it hurt deeply. But I’m glad it happened.

I look forward to the day I get to see Lexi again so we can pick up where we left off. Whatever that may look like.