Kinzirella

by Brian Rogers   9/2010
West Bountiful, Utah

In summer of 1989, we had been living in Texas for about nine months. Another family moved into our ward in the spring of that year. With both families being somewhat new to the area, we became close friends, often spending a couple nights a week together. Rob and Deycie were pregnant with a little girl that was due in August. When Kinzi was born, the ventricular wall of her heart was broken. The wall had not developed properly, leaving a hole that allowed the blood to flow where it shouldn’t. Additionally, the arteries, and veins that enter, or exit at the top of the heart had grown together. To top it all off, she was underweight.

Kinzi’s outlook was not good. In fact, for Rob and Deycie, it was horribly inconceivable. Kinzi was admitted to Children’s Hospital in Dallas, where a newborn heart surgeon, Dr. W. Steves Ring, pronounced there was much that could be done. But (isn’t there always a caveat?), Kinzi needed to gain weight or she would not survive the operation. A few days later, maybe a week or so, Kinzi was not gaining weight. In fact, she was losing weight, more than most newborns do. The situation was critical. The surgery was her only hope.

At the time, as I recall and I may be conflating the sequence of events, I was traveling near Houston for my work. Rob called me and asked that I return and give Kinzi a blessing. He felt that he was too close to the problem and fearing the death of his daughter, he might ask amiss, thus going against God’s will.

It was nighttime. I checked out of the hotel, jumped in the truck and rushed to Dallas. I think it was early in the morning when I arrived. I remember it was light but the sun was not yet up. I found the pediatric intensive care unit and joined Rob and Deycie in Kinzi’s room. They looked dreadful, the stress sapping every emotional, mental and physical strength they had. Kinzi looked worse. Rob asked me once again to bless his daughter. He anointed her with consecrated oil and then I laid my hands on her tiny head.

Then it came.

Before that day, I had given many blessings. You know, the normal kind, nothing special, relieving some minor discomfort or such. The previous blessings were almost perfunctory. After I stated Kinzi’s name I paused for some reason. I had never paused like that before at the beginning of a blessing.

Instantaneously there was such an infusion of spirit that I was overwhelmed. I mean exactly that. I had never felt such a thing yet I knew its source. It sensation was as much physical as it was spiritual. It was similar to (yet not) when we say our leg has fallen asleep. However, this was much stronger, very much stronger. At the same time, I knew what this was and I could not, nor ever would, deny what was happening. To this day, whenever I give a blessing, I always a pause for a moment after stating the person’s name. The same feeling always comes. When it does, I know I am connected.

In the heartbeat, I knew everything I needed to know about Kinzi. It wasn’t so much as her life passed before me like the proverbial pre-death newsreel, although I have used that expression to describe what happened, as it was pure knowledge. I knew that Kinzi would live. I knew that she would become a mother. I knew this as surely as I knew anything in my life. There was no equivocation; no doubt, faith was no longer a factor. It was knowledge. It was truth.

I do not recall the actual words I spoke. I imagine it was brief. When I removed my hands from Kinzi, I was calm, assured, and confident. I told Rob and Deycie to not worry, that all was well. Kinzi would live.

The surgery took place I believe either that day or the next. I remember going in to see Kinzi with Rob in the recovery room. She was splayed out on the bed like an ether saturated frog in a high school biology class. Tubes running everywhere, to and from places you don’t want to know. It had to be done but it was and is painful to witness and remember.

As she recovered over the next few days, I spoke with Rob or Deycie, to see how things were going. I visited them as I could. On one such visit, I remember Rob telling me of a young couple in the hospital whose child was born with too many complications to survive. Heart, lung, kidney’s, all were beyond healing. The couple was given their child and shown were the chapel was. They took their child inside…and waited.

Can you imagine the pain that couple experienced? To hold their child, just a day or so old, and wait for death to relieve it from its pain while introducing a new kind of pain that no parent should have to suffer? Can you then imagine Rob and Deycie, knowing of this other couple, must have feared for Kinzi as she lay in a bed across the room? Yet I knew different.

Five or six days after the surgery, I went to the hospital. The recovery was expected to take a couple of weeks at least. Rob and Deycie were exhausted. To prevent congestion, they had been instructed to take turns walking Kinzi back and forth, roughly pounding on her back as they did. I thought the pounding was excessively hard when I watched them but I was assured it was necessary. This was required every twenty minutes or so, around the clock, twenty on, twenty off. I recall looking at them, sensing they needed relief themselves. So I told them to go home, go to bed, and hold each other. I insisted on it. I would not take no for an answer.

Reluctantly they left. I picked up Kinzi and strolled around the hospital for the next 10 hours or so, pounding on Kinzi’s small back, alternating every 20 minutes. We went everywhere. I told her stories, whatever came into my mind, mostly to keep myself awake. She slept through most of it, I imagine due to the heavy medication she was on. My arms and back ached terribly but I recalled being determined to do this. Rob and Deycie needed some time alone. Kinzi needed this. I needed it.

The next morning, shortly after Rob and Deycie returned, Dr. Ring paid a visit to the room. I remember being there. I can see it, relive it, as I am typing this. Dr. Ring looked at Kinzi, examining her color and whatever indicators he was so well trained to see. He sighed and stated that he did not see any reason for her to remain in the hospital. Go home, get out of here. Five days. Not the expected two weeks. Five days. Do you believe in miracles? Do you believe God answers prayers?

A few years later, Lyn and I had moved to East Texas. I was a counselor in the Bishopic two month later when Rob called. He told me he as being called as the Bishop and asked me to be there, to support him. Of course, I went. But our families drifted apart. It happens. Life does that. A few years later, we returned to Utah and lost all contact with Rob, Deycie, and Kinzi.

Somewhere along the road, I learned that Rob and Deycie divorced, with Rob leaving the Church. It hurt. But this sometimes happens to the best of us. I do not know the reasons why, for the divorce or for leaving the Church. It is not my business.

Then, about four years ago, my youngest daughter was married to a wonderful young man, whose family was in the same ward near Dallas that both Rob and Deycie’s family as well as mine lived. At the reception that night, Deycie came from down from Idaho with some of her children. You must know by now, that Kinzi holds a sacred spot in my heart. It is impossible for me to even so much as look at her and keep my eyes dry. I cannot contain my emotions. When I realized Deycie was there, I looked for and found Kinzi. I had to leave the room. It was too much. I went to the restroom and tried to compose myself. I wasn’t very successful.

You see, Kinzi is a major foundation stone in my testimony. Not the cornerstone as that belongs to my Master. But she secures my foundation. There are parts of my testimony that are based solely on faith. The power of the priesthood, the healing gift God has given me is not one of those. This is knowledge. I have that gift and I know it.

We haven’t stayed in touch, Kinzi and I, as she matured. She is living her life, I mine. Then, just the other day, Kinzi emailed me. It seems that Kinzi has caught her a man. I have been tacitly watching Kinzi and Steve via Facebook over the last few months and I suspected, felt, the time was near. I was hoping and praying to be home so that I could attend the reception, if not the sealing.

Steve and Kinzi  2010
I have seen your life, little one.
 Live very long and prosper.

However, Kinzi asked me something unexpected, something special, something sacred. She asked me to be a witness to her sealing. You can imagine how I felt. This little girl, who is so important to me, who is part of the foundation of my testimony, has given me such an honor. I love her dearly.

With tears, this morning I thanked the Lord for such a privilege. I will be there.