dropping
baby luke off at heaven.

This is Luke’s story, as told by his dad.

For Luke: to celebrate the little light of ours we will forever adore.

For Ty and Sam: to remember your brother as you grow up.

For family and friends: to connect the stories we’ve told with the ones too difficult to verbalize.

For his parents: to heal and move forward as a more complete version of ourselves.

As the clock hit 2:00 AM on July 30, 2025, I sat on what I’ll generously call a modestly comfortable couch at Northside Hospital, waiting to welcome Luke into the world for what Shannon and I hoped would be a peaceful stop on his way to heaven. By this point, I’d spent more teary-eyed nights than I could count grappling with how to tell his story. For whatever reason, my mind kept wandering back to a literary puzzle I only later realized the author named after the first biblical reference to parents saying goodbye to their son.

A close friend recently introduced me to Cain’s Jawbone: a novel written in 1934 by a cryptic crossword compiler. The Guardian describes it as follows: “The distinctive, not to say brain-aching, novelty of Cain’s Jawbone is that its 100 pages are numbered out of sequence. And it’s the reader’s job to discover what the real order is... The number of possible combinations of pages is a figure that is 158 numbers long.” On one hand, I’ll admit I’ve placed the book in my Amazon cart more than once: I found the allure of a difficult intellectual challenge quite appealing. On the other hand, I emptied my cart every time after acknowledging 1) I’m highly competitive and exceptionally bad at admitting defeat, 2) only four people have solved the puzzle in almost one-hundred years, and 3) I don’t have much free time.

In the weeks immediately following Luke’s terminal diagnosis, the story I would have told centered around heartbreak, agony, and unanswerable questions. I contemplated an alternative: to channel what Shannon and I were experiencing into an op ed to inspire people to take a more empathetic position when interacting with others who they disagree with, particularly on the immensely polarizing topic of abortion. After all, it’s 2025 in the state of Georgia.

I haven’t yet worked through what feels like 10^158 different brain-aching variations, but the past several months have helped to rearrange the pages into a third narrative. Thanks to experiences I transcribe in the seven chapters to come, what I now know is that Luke’s story centers around joy, peace, and gratitude. I hope reading it has the same enriching effect that our family has experienced in living it.

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01 | SUNRISE

Every year since Reverend Don Barber married Shannon and me on a dock at Lake Rabun on April 25, 2020, we have spent Christmas Eve with Shannon’s Italian-American family enjoying the “Feast of the Seven Fishes.” Pregnant with Ty in 2021 and Sam in 2023, Shannon had become artfully adept at avoiding raw fish and wine throughout each lavish meal. So much so that in 2024, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary as we enjoyed another spectacular seafood soiree. Perhaps the continuous chasing of our 2-year old and 10-month old distracted me.

Back at home that evening, Shannon somewhat casually slipped into conversation, “do you think Sam would be a good big brother?” I immediately responded with “is this your way of telling me you’re pregnant?” Shannon had kept the secret for two days to surprise me on Christmas Eve, and “give herself a little thrill.”

The list of things to talk about felt endless. We intended to stay up late into the night, but after an hour or two Shannon felt “the most pregnant she’s ever felt at five weeks,” so we called it early. As it turns out, Shannon’s early onset morning sickness was in fact a stomach bug – Merry Christmas! Maybe next year we’ll ramp up the alliteration, ramp down the Omega-3s, and go with the “Feast of Four or Five Fishes.”

Over a long January weekend, we celebrated Shannon’s birthday with a romantic getaway to High Hampton Resort in North Carolina. By the time we embarked on a snowy drive home that Monday, we had talked through seemingly everything. Boy or girl? What name for each? Will we survive three children this close in age? When should we commit to a nanny? Do we need two or three nannies? When will we need a bigger car and a bigger house? Overwhelmed and excited, we thought we had it all figured out. Two weeks later, a much more difficult set of questions arrived with a gut-wrenching phone call.

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02 | SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE

On February 3, Shannon received a call with the genetic testing results. She sensed the bad news immediately when the caller introduced herself as a doctor. The non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) results came back positive for Trisomy 13, a rare genetic disorder occurring in about 1 in 16,000 live births. Most Trisomy 13 babies die in utero or within the first week of life. The doctor told Shannon the test was 92% accurate, and that more invasive tests could confirm the diagnosis within a week or two.

Shannon and I processed the news in different ways. She moved more quickly to acceptance, whereas I resorted to reading through scientific white papers looking for some form of hope. What I found only made the situation more complicated. When a baby has Trisomy 13, NIPT returns a positive result 92% of the time. A more informative number is the positive predictive value: what percentage of positive tests are true positives vs. false positives. This is a function of the detection rate, the false positive rate, and the rareness of the disease. Based on the risk factors specific to Shannon’s pregnancy, the genetic counselor estimated a positive predictive value of 26%, which would indicate there was a three in four chance the initial test result was incorrect.

We did our best to make it through each day while grappling with the uncertainty. We told our family and several friends that week, as we knew we wouldn’t be our normal happy selves when we celebrated Sam’s first birthday that weekend. Beyond the heartbreak, most conversations carried a heavy undercurrent: were we planning to terminate, or carry the baby to term?

Over the next six weeks, Shannon visited the high-risk pregnancy center every week to attempt a Chorionic Villus Sampling (CVS) test to provide a more definitive diagnosis. Each time, the doctors could not successfully perform the test. Each time, we received a new ultrasound scan, with widely varying opinions on the probabilities of the outcome we increasingly knew would be the result versus the one we held out hope to receive. After nearly two months of this emotional rollercoaster, we confirmed our baby did in fact have Trisomy 13.

Throughout that time, Shannon and I had many conversations too painful to fully recount. We see eye-to-eye on almost everything in life, yet we found it extraordinarily challenging to get on the same page on how to handle what was next. On March 18, while traveling for work, I left the office early in the afternoon for the first time in as long as I can remember. We spent hours on the phone, first with the genetic counselor, and then with just the two of us. We agreed on a plan we both felt comfortable with. We would drive to North Carolina together in a few days to induce labor 17 weeks into the pregnancy. We looked at the gender results for the first time: we were expecting another baby boy. We picked out a name that we loved, and I stayed up late that night drafting an email to coworkers that I planned to send out the following week.

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03 | SUNSHINE

The next morning – March 19 – I woke up to a text from Shannon: “U up?” Complicated by the three time zones that separated us, it piqued my curiosity nonetheless. I’ll never forget the conversation we had that morning, with my Uber driver Abraham quietly listening in.

Shannon began by describing the dream she had the night before. She saw a beautiful little boy with blonde hair, beaming as the sunlight touched his face. He was so happy. When she focused on his face, she noticed the area between his nose and mouth was blurred out – right where our baby’s cleft palate would have been. It was a quick vision, but she startled up in bed with clarity: “that’s our baby, and his name is Luke.” Although we had agreed on a different name the night before, she looked up the meaning of Luke and read, “in a spiritual context, the name Luke is associated with light-giving, bringer of light, or enlightening and emphasizes God’s care for the marginalized, the Holy Spirit’s role, and the universal message of the Gospel.” Before I could even begin to process everything, she added “so we’re carrying him to term — I hope you’re on board with that!”

I left Abraham a generous tip for his composure, and ended the call after the twenty-seven minute ride. Later that day, Shannon texted me “the colors were so bright, like he was looking into the sun.” Not to be outdone, throughout the course of that day I texted her wisdom that included “you are testing my compartmentalization capabilities,” “do we still need Friday’s therapy session,” “Woah! Spring Black Friday?” and “You’re a stud.”

Although we knew the remainder of the pregnancy would be very difficult, both Shannon and I felt like a massive weight had been lifted with this new path forward — a sense of peace that surpassed our understanding.

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04 | STROBE LIGHTS

Over the next three months, I did my best to catch up to Shannon in accepting baby Luke’s diagnosis. Each day, Shannon and I seesawed between optimism and agony. We both struggled with questions we never expected to be answered.

Strangers started to congratulate Shannon on her pregnancy, which we knew might be difficult to handle. For my part, I didn’t anticipate how hard it would be to get through 10-15 meetings each day that all started with “how are you?” On March 26, I emailed fifty coworkers to share our family update. The responses blew me away, and served as a turning point that enabled me to share what we were going through much more openly. I originally planned to quote several, but I’ll save that for Luke’s baby book given the impossibility of choosing, coupled with the realization that I’m not exactly knocking this out of the park as far as brevity is concerned.

After the countless CVS test attempts, Shannon stopped going to the high-risk pregnancy center. We started going to therapy between hospital visits. We met with a neonatologist and Northside’s bereavement and palliative care program, H.E.A.R.T.strings, to better understand Luke’s diagnosis and what to expect in the months ahead. As Luke grew and we gathered more information, every ultrasound increasingly pointed to a condition incompatible with life. The images indicated issues with his heart, brain, and craniofacial features. It really hurt to learn he would never develop a nose.

Shannon was able to go from thinking about the pregnancy every moment to living her life as best she could. Going back to her studio brought her so much joy. At one point she considered putting her art on pause, yet by the time summer arrived she “couldn’t paint fast enough.”

In a preview of what I expect the next few years will bring, what may seem like small things had a big impact. I ran into a coworker in the hall who stopped me to ask, “can I give you a hug?” So many thoughtful people shared their stories in such a touching way. I randomly burst into tears at the sight of a dad walking his newborn in a stroller. Our dog Riggins started resting his head on Shannon’s belly, just like he did with Ty and Sam’s pregnancies. I confused plenty of Uber drivers and flight passengers with spontaneous tears when my compartmentalization broke down.

After much thought and careful planning, we told Ty that baby Luke was in Mama’s belly. While we know he doesn’t fully comprehend the situation, his sweet demeanor at any mention of baby Luke points to an innocent intuition. We started counting down the days until our three boys could meet, knowing by June we’d have eight weeks to go.

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05 | ENLIGHTENMENT

On June 1, Joel Thomas delivered a sermon at Decatur City Church titled “Choosing Hard.” In a way Shannon and I had never before encountered, it felt like he was preaching directly to us. The message centered around James 1:2-4: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” He closed with a challenge: “If you’re currently facing a trial, you’re in a challenging season that’s testing you… with two seconds of insane courage… would you stand so I could pray for you?” Shannon and I both had far more tears to share than we did insane courage, so though we stayed in our seats, the prayer made us feel like we were floating:

“God I want your help. I know you want to use this. And so until you choose to remove it, I want to surrender to you and allow you to use it to grow me and shape me and form me into who you want me to be. I want to pray for clarity and for wisdom and for perseverance in the midst of what you’re in. And ultimately that God will give you peace, a peace that doesn’t make sense because of what you’re in the middle of, but peace to continue to walk through it.”

Six weeks later, on July 13, Billy Phenix delivered a sermon that built on Joel’s message far more than I believe he intended. He told the story of the hymn It is Well with my Soul. The author, Horatio Spafford, wrote the lyrics after his four daughters died in a shipwreck while traveling to Europe. Immediately thereafter, Horatio set sail for England to reunite with his wife. While sailing over the area where the shipwreck had occurred, Horatio didn’t write a song about heartbreak and agony. Instead, he wrote, “When peace like a river attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot Thou has taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.”

A week later, Shannon asked Ty if he wanted to talk about baby Luke. When he said yes, she reminded him that baby Luke would be born in a hospital, but that we couldn’t bring him home. With that same innocent intuition he saves for conversations about his youngest brother without exception, he asked, “Mama, can we drop baby Luke off at heaven?”

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06 | SUNSET

On July 29, we drove to what we hoped would be our last OB appointment before scheduling an induction on August 5. The ultrasound revealed low amniotic fluid. Soon thereafter, we sat in a labor and delivery room at Northside Hospital preparing to meet baby Luke. Several hours and zero epidurals later, we welcomed Luke into the world at 5:35 AM on July 30. We held him in our arms for nineteen minutes as he took five small, sweet, peaceful baby breaths.

Ty and Sam joined us later that morning with their grandmothers to visit Luke. Ty brought Luke a stuffed bear, and admired the red hair he and Luke both share. Sam followed Ty’s lead as he usually does, and gave Luke a warm hug and a soft kiss.

At 2:04 that afternoon, the hospital chaplain baptized Luke in an emotional ceremony. As the room cleared, Shannon and I held Luke for a few final minutes. I finally gathered the strength to rock Luke and sing my favorite lullaby, Hush Little Baby. So many times throughout Ty and Sam’s lives, the song calmed them down in moments of sadness. Though I could barely manage a whisper, in this moment the song brought me peace in my final minutes on earth with Luke.

The next day, Shannon and I drove to Arlington Memorial Park. It was a hot afternoon, and we both anticipated a challenge choosing the right little space for Luke amidst 122 acres of rolling hills. We rode in a golf cart for two hours, narrowing down the options as we went. At one point, we drove by the grave of the longtime Atlanta Braves announcer Skip Carey, where a goose seemed to have set up shop for the day. While an avid Braves fan, I couldn’t help but think the goose might be putting in a good word for a roster spot – he’d arguably be an upgrade to this year’s bullpen.

We considered a space beside an infant named Benjamin, and another next to a doctor whose plaque read A VERY NICE LADY. We liked the idea of Luke resting beside a new friend or a very nice lady, but neither felt quite right. We loved the Calvary garden, and looked for a sign to aid our decision. Close to selecting a central spot on a hill under the calm Georgia sun, I asked what happened to a tree recently removed nearby. Our guide shared that it had just been struck by lightning, which felt very on-theme for Luke’s story.

On August 2, Pastor Don drove down from Lake Rabun to officiate Luke’s burial. Earlier that morning, as I tried to drift off to sleep, I made the decision to share Luke’s story during the ceremony – I hadn’t even considered it up until that point. It took several minutes and many tears to get through the first fifteen words. The next three thousand weren’t much easier.

Pastor Don’s message was perfect. He started by acknowledging the difficulty of losing a child: “there are no words.” There is a word if your lose your husband: you are a widow. There is a word if you lose your wife: you are a widower. There is a word when a child loses their parents: they are now orphans. But there are no words, in any language in the world, for when a parent loses a child. The reason is that it is a loss too terrible to name.

As he prepared to close, Pastor Don shared,

“The way you parented your sons Ty and Sam through this journey again is a witness and example of love. Shannon, as you shared how you told Ty at just three that you would soon have Luke, but he wasn’t going to come home, he was going to go straight to heaven: Ty’s wisdom and faith showed in his asking, ‘can we take him there?' Yes, you have… and you did.

That very old man in Genesis named Enoch walked with God every day of his life, and the Bible says simply in Genesis 5:24, Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away. That is a passage my friend Dr. Frank Harrington would use only occasionally, if a person lived a very long and faithful life. But I have realized in these recent days, it applies equally as much to a short and faithful life. See Dr. Harrington interpreted that passage in the most beautiful way. Every day Enoch and God walked and talked and talked and walked, and one day they walked so far together that God said, ‘Enoch, we are closer to my house than yours, why don’t you come home with me.’

As Ty asked so honestly and authentically in love, ‘can we take him there?’ Yes, you have…and you did. Amen.”

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07 | STARLIGHT

Just as Spafford wrote, “When sorrow like sea billows roll,” water serves as an incredibly apt analogy for grief. I’ve cried more this year than the prior thirty-four. As I spread the last few shovelfuls of dirt to fill Luke’s grave, the tears began to slow. It felt like the final burst after the collapse of the Hoover Dam. Sitting at home the next evening, my heart – and back – still ache for Luke. Today’s emotions remind me of a much smaller dam: one that will overflow occasionally, but with proper water management, will generate the electricity to power a family. Over time, I look forward to decommissioning the dam to enjoy the beautiful, shimmering stream of emotions reflecting the impact of baby Luke’s life.

Ty and Sam now have glow-in-the-dark stars on their ceilings. At bedtime every night, we’ll look up and picture baby Luke as a star smiling down on us. We look forward to visiting Arlington to celebrate Easter, Christmas, and Luke’s birthdays. We’ll bring the whole family for a picnic, and let the kids pick out a gift for Luke each year. I’m particularly excited for the year we’ll give him a baseball and visualize the fun we’d all share playing catch together.

We don’t know what to expect in the months and years to come. We continue to seek out the joy associated with perseverance. We appreciate the peace afforded by five baby breaths and nineteen memorable minutes with Luke. We feel overwhelming gratitude knowing there is a guardian angel looking after Ty and Sam throughout life.

For Shannon: I can’t imagine going through this with anyone else. You are the perfect mother and wife. I’ll forever cherish the amazing sacrifices you make for our whole family. I love you.

say hello to baby luke.

One disappointment of this experience is that Luke didn’t have the opportunity to meet all of you. We would be honored if you would say hello by mailing us a card or filling out this webform. Please share whatever is authentic: a message, a prayer, a memory, a joke, or even a photo or drawing.

As the years go by, we know the memories of these emotional months will fade. We look forward to reading – and rereading – your stories as one of many ways to honor baby Luke.