Lexi died 100 days ago. She would’ve been 20 years old last July. This morning she would’ve complained but complied while getting out of bed, saying (in not so many words) that she’s only a morning person after 10am. Probably chicken nuggets and yogurt at school for lunch, then more therapies to keep developing her fine motor skills. Perhaps a speech pathologist would’ve kept working with her to work on articulating the letter P, which would’ve been followed, naturally, by potty training and maybe a handful of Goldfish crackers — someone else’s on a nearby plate. She was leisurely unless it came to swiping other people’s food, not unlike how a frog kinda lounges around and suddenly reaches for a fly with its quick tongue.

Lexi was full of surprises and contradictions like that, often pretending she couldn’t do certain things in anticipation that a compassionate person nearby would see her plight and pick up her drinking cup that she threw across the room. If you told her to do it herself, she’d get right up and snag it, confounding onlookers as she gave a sly smile, reminding us all that things are not always as they seem.

Brittany would’ve conducted no less than 100 phone calls and texts in as many days, maintaining her medical and educational care, ensuring that Lexi had exactly what she needed at every juncture. We would’ve still scratched our heads, along with the medical people, about what exactly was ailing her. No, she can’t point to where it hurts, but she’ll swipe that poorly guarded candy bar from your front pocket, thank you very much. Now, if you wouldn’t mind indulging her by opening the wrapper… another sly smile.

20 years is a long time where seconds pass slowly and months go flying by. She required much but taught much, engaged in the world at her own level and whim, and modeled for us zero tolerance for counterfeit humanity. She was a soul reader, knowing more about the person than they could ever speak. I still don’t know how she did that, but I knew she had compassion for me in the tough times and reality checks for my inborn selfishness. You had to become a better person to take care of Lexi, which gave her the uncanny power of calling people to rise to the occasion by her sheer existence.

Someone asked me how it’s going. At this point, I can best describe being Lexi’s dad like serving in a war where you encountered raw humanity yet, at the same time, made lifelong bonds as the person you were designed to be came to exist because it was so hard. Raising a child with special needs refines a person — as if going through a long tunnel that plunges you in a darkness while encountering sudden bright geodes catching the beam off of your flashlight and shimmering, a kind of beauty that can only exist underground. They don’t typically mine diamonds in beautiful places.

Some people know exactly what I’m talking about. Others have yet to encounter this paradox of life, a world where God allows and uses suffering to shape us as we encounter impossibilities and overcome, enabled by a brand of grace that is meant exclusively for journeys like this.

I miss Lexi. I miss the paradox. I miss the contradictions. I miss moments where she demanded I sing. I miss coaxing her out of bed for school 10 hours after begging her to go to sleep. Her will was often stronger than the prescription, which made me a stronger person. Not perfect, but better.

Changing a diaper is glamourus for about six months of a person’s life. 20 years is a long time. I’m not complaining, because that’s the kind of biological disaster that will bring a person down a few pegs. Did I just speak to a crowd of 3,000 people? Yes. Do I need to clean under my fingernails now? Yes.

If this were a typical Friday, Lexi would soon be getting off of the bus and making her way to the house, angry at the three stairs that go from the garage to the kitchen, yet thrilled to sneak a cookie off the counter and high-tail it for the couch. It’s time for YouTube, another thing that she mastered without anyone’s help. I marvel at the juxtaposition between her incapacities and abilities. Just once, I should’ve let her try driving a car.

That’s what they told me, by the way — that she would never drive a car or live by herself or get married. The doctor was warm as he broke the news, holding 2 week old newborn Lexi gently in his hands. I never got to walk her down the aisle to her husband, but I had the honor of walking her to the bus every day, as if to say that, in either case, I’m your dad and I love you.

There are challenges in your life that will teach you more than the people next door who face dissimilar challenges. It’s one thing to get your lawn just right — another thing altogether to clean dried oatmeal out of Lexi’s hair every day. Not that she was unkempt, just active, sweet, and sly. I love her and wish she was here today.

Embrace these challenges and the people involved. I dare say you’ll miss them — not the tough part, but all the moments of beauty that, like any geologist will tell you, can only be found in the dark underground. These are truths I knew nothing about before Lexi. Until I see her again, I trust my daughter to the hands of her Heavenly Father, the one who embraces with even greater warmth than the doctor who told us what she wouldn’t be able to do while she was here.