Good-bye, Sweet Freckle-Faced Daisy Love...

  uploaded to YouTube by ForTheMerricks·February 16, 2013

Britt and Kate Merrick did the best of jobs in trying to prepare all who had fallen in love with
their family, all who admire their lust for life, and their willingness to go to the ends of the earth, both in desperation and in hope.  We loved the wise parents, all the more so when wisdom failed them and they put one foot in front of the other, out of necessity and faith, combined.  We loved Isaiah for hanging on to Daisy on top of camels, in the oceans and seas, and for his watchful eye and gracious heart.

And we loved Daisy, standing in perfect first position at the end of her hospital bed, shoulders back, chin up, left arm on the barre of the bed's footboard, right hand gracefully extended -- with a foley catheter bag looped over the wrist -- a perfect Degas dancer's face imprinted on her own impish one.  We loved her surfing, clinging wet and happy to her father, and hovering around the tan legs of her mom, who took more pictures and videos than she was in.  Kate and Britt took their family on that final, desperate trip to Israel, Britt gave his cells for cancer vaccines, they tried new things, and in their trying made cures for others so much more probable in the future -- immunological advances, ways to shore up the body to fight.  Daisy, Isaiah, Kate, and Britt went where Jesus walked.  Daisy, like every tourist, I imagine, tried to walk on water.

I don't know these people.

Britt is the founder of a church movement, a pastor, born into one of the greatest surfing dynasties in the world.  He still calls himself a surf board shaper. Kate is private, but what has gravitated to her is of such wonder that you know she is wonderful, herself.  Isaiah is a young man, and inasmuch as I have been trained to read pictures as well as words (ut pictura poesis), I know he is a young man of gravitas -- with as much capacity for silliness as the next kid.

I did not know Daisy.

But anyone could see the emergence of her freckles over time, not just with the Israeli and Californian suns, but with the power of the pallor that cancer brought beneath them. She was funny, bright, lucky, blessed, but I think she pitied us all, somehow, too.  Or tired of us, is more like it.  She was practically a Foundation before she'd even died, the organization upholding her family was that organized.  (I was heartened at how the Merricks and their family and friends, though, closed ranks in these final months, at how they cherished and controlled their precious privacy.  I was glad and relieved to be a proper outsider.)

Even not knowing her, even with the warnings I gave myself -- that Daisy just happened to be one of the four children with cancer that I follow and support at any given time;  that Daisy was just my happenstance -- I fell in love with her.  I will always love her.

Thank you, Kate and Britt, for sharing the journey, for the funny pictures, and the wrenching ones. Thanks even for the sermons.  Thanks for knowing science and medicine as gifts and arts from God.  Thanks for giving Daisy the freedom to have her moments of doubt.

This is what they wrote yesterday:

At 2:40am this morning our sweet Daisy went to be with Jesus. She was sleeping and in no pain.
Christ is with us as the God of all comfort. We are thankful.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)
Daisy believed this and so do we. More than ever.
Love,
The Merricks
(At this time funeral plans are still forthcoming. Please check back this week for more info and details.)

Britt Merrick: "When Sparrows Fall": Matthew 10:28-31

To see previous posts about Daisy Love Merrick, click HERE.  For lots of info on Daisy, her family, and background to their story, visit Pray For Daisy.

This is a 55-minute long video of a sermon delivered by Britt Merrick* at one of the network of churches he founded called "Reality." This is, I believe, his home church, in Santa Barbara.  You can learn more about Reality churches and missions HERE.  They see their growth as part of a process called "church birthing," to emphasize their own emphasis on family, as a reality and as an idea.

Reality is a family of churches. Reality Carpinteria was born on September 7, 2003. Since that time we have birthed churches in Los Angeles, Stockton, and San Francisco, CA. We also have a grandchild in London, England, that was birthed from Reality LA. Our next church will be in Boston, MA and is scheduled to start in the fall of 2012. God has called Reality to be a church planting movement.  We never sought to be this, but it has become clear that this is what God is calling us to do and be, and it is something we are passionate about.

Though planting is the common metaphor for starting new churches, we prefer to call what we do church birthing. Birthing is more labor intensive and relational than the planting metaphor suggests.

Britt is on a leave of abscence from his pastoral duties and this is a sermon that he felt called to deliver to update the community about his daughter, Daisy, Daisy Love, Daisy Love Merrick.  A very cool, brave little girl who is actively dying, trying so hard to die with grace, within the love, grace, and faith of her family, whom she knows to be around her here and waiting for her in Heaven.

The Merricks took Daisy to Israel over the summer for some treatments not available in the United States -- immunotherapy, cancer vaccines, much of which involved the transfer of cells from Britt to Daisy.  They road camels.

Daisy and her brother Isaiah

They surfed and swam.  (The Merrick family is, well, a surfing dynasty.)

Daisy surfing in Israel

Matthew 10: 28-31 reads:

28 Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body but can’t kill the soul. Instead, be afraid of the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell. 29 Aren’t two sparrows sold for a small coin? But not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father knowing about it already. 30 Even the hairs of your head are all counted. 31 Don’t be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.

I look at this picture -- among others -- every few days, when I wonder what is happening within. and to, Daisy, Daisy Love, Daisy Love Merrick, Daughter of the Surf. Freckled Little Girl of Inspiring Imagination, and I don't pray.  I prayed for Daisy once, and that -- from all I understand
about omnipotence and stuff -- ought to have been enough.  Whenever Britt or Kate call for prayer, I bow my head, think of them and their terrible pain, of Isaiah's probably anger and confusion, and always, in that dumb bowed head, see Daisy's face, which, although I know its beauty must be greatly changed, I forever see this way:

And while no prayer comes out, I try to send them love from my heart, and I imagine holding their hands -- thin, dry, damp, sweaty, clenched in a fist, open in a stroke, seeking -- scuttling hands, worrying thumbs, wavering fingers.

*******     *******     *******     *******     *******     *******

*His biography at the Reality Santa Barbara website reads:

I am the founder of Reality and the current Pastor for Preaching and Vision. This means that I do the bulk of the preaching on Sunday mornings for all three campuses, that I guide the church doctrinally, and lead the effort to discern in community (with a plurality of elders) Christ's leading for Reality. The passionate pursuit of my life is to enjoy Jesus. I love my wife Kate, my son Isaiah and my daughter Daisy. I also love surfing, guitars, motocross and books.

"this love is stronger..."

Dominic Balli - Daisy's Song Live 2012

Published on Mar 30, 2012

by dominicballi

When that storm comes
Like a hurricane
And the sun seems far away

We will not fear the wind
We will not fear the waves
I can feel your calm within

When this life is shaken
By ragin' seas
We are not gon' be afraid

So if ya walk on waves and wind
Then hold my hand and I'll walk again

This love is stronger than the blood that beats my heart
This love is deeper, than the pain of all these scars
This love goes farther than the hope in answer's arms
This love is stronger
It's strong enough for me

You lived our sorrows,
Befriended all our pain
All that we might rise again

You stole my sickness,
Rested in my disease
All that I might rest in thee

And you alone bring healing,
And for you I'll wait
But we are not gon' be afraid


This love is stronger than the blood that beats my heart
This love is deeper, than the pain of all these scars
This love goes farther than the hope in answer's arms
This love is stronger
It's strong enough for me


We may be crushed but we are not ever forsaken
We may be struck down but we are not ever destroyed
Then when that fire comes to shine through me your glory
We are not gonna be afraid