Relay for LIfe

Dear Christian

Good afternoon beautiful. It is such a gorgeous sunny day in Truro, I can’t help but feel a little sad when I think of the things you would have loved to have done on a day such as this. Golfing with daddy, heading to the park to throw rocks and play or just jumping on the trampoline in the back yard. You are constantly on my mind and I wonder on an hourly basis if things will ever change, will I ever stop missing you?

Friday night your nanny organized a team to participate in the relay for life, in your honor. She did such an amazing job bringing awareness to pediatric cancer. All of your aunties where there to walk in your honor. We cried a lot and thought of you constantly. I am so proud of all that accomplished in your short life, I am so proud of all the lessons you taught others about perseverance and joy. I feel so blessed to be your mom and I am making a huge effort to accept that your time on earth was so full and you truly lived and loved as much as an adult would. My thoughts have shifted lately to trying to figure out what is was you taught me over these past few years. I know I have doubted many times my ability to love and be loved and I think that you smashed that out of the water. I could never imagine loving somebody as much as I have loved you. There is nothing on earth that I wouldn’t have done for you. Ultimately in ends up that the one thing that I had to do for you was something that I didn’t want to do – I had to give you up. I was forced to reconcile you back to God, the creator and perfector of everything. For in Him I trust that you are safe and healed. In Him I trust that you are beyond happy and at peace.  Lately my memories bring me back to your last few days on earth. I think about the love and peace that your daddy and I felt for you. And understanding what I now know, I can feel peace thinking that the two days you spent ‘unconscious’ you where being ministered to by God Himself. That He was showing you how amazing heaven was, how much love you would feel and how free your body would be. I know you were not afraid to die and that God allowed your body to hold on so that daddy and I could be as ready as possible to let you go. If there is one thing that I would love to give you it would be a life free from the pain you knew so well. It would be freedom from the limitations and frustrations we experienced. And now you have this gift and my pathetic understandings of our earthly time don’t allow me to fully grasp your situation. That God has set us up to spend eternity together. And these days, weeks and months that I have spent crying and moaning your loss will seem like spit in the wind when we are finally reunited.

Evelyn and Ryan still talk about you lots. We always say hi and “I love you” when we look to the moon and the stars. I am grateful their pain is different and they don’t spend their days wishing things away. I am so thankful that they, like you, constantly seek joy and fun. That they put smiles on our faces and remind us of you on a daily basis.  Ryan is such a busy two year old and is in constant need of somebody to play with. He loves hockey almost as much as you loved Star Wars and anybody who plays with him becomes his new best friend. Evelyn is a beautiful and gentle soul who quietly misses you but never says much about it. She enjoys being with Ryan and staying busy with her stuffies. Please continue to watch over us and help us to understand you are near. I love you to Hoth and backJ

Love Mommy

Daddy and Ryan on the beach in NS

One way ticket

Dear Christian

Tonight as I lay in bed with Ryan we talked about you in heaven. He told me that you were coming back. But I told him that once you went to heaven you couldn’t come back, you stayed there with Jesus forever. He said we could take a plane and go and visit you but if we couldn’t come back then I had to go with him. Oh how I wish that was true, that I could jump on a plane and six hours later hold you in my arms. But the distance between us is so much greater, yet I know we are closer. The honest part of me has to admit that I just don’t believe it. Where others grieving see clouds and butterflies to remind them about their missing angels, I don’t see anything. I don’t see your face except in weird random dreams, so frantic to see your face that I try desperately to go back to sleep to try and experience it again. Every now and then I will feel a cool breeze come over me, like I did almost on a nightly basis in the hospital before you died. Or the other day I could smell the plastic from your GT while Evan and I were at the swimming pool, at first I was mad because I didn’t want to remember that part of your journey. But the smell seemed to follow me throughout the day and I did feel as thought you were walking with me but then I haven’t smelled it again.

Love the look on his face - so beautiful

Parts of me are already starting to forget what normal life was like with you. I guess we didn’t have much of a normal life, racing to the hospital in the middle of the night, constantly fretting over fevers and medications, watching every pound you lost or gained and praying for the day that ‘normal’ would crawl back into our home. I am worried that I will start to forget how you felt in my arms, what your voice sounded like asking me for food, and how you looked when you slept beside. I will never forget the feel of your leg over mine as slept, you rubbing my face with your skinny little hands and the way you made your brother and sister laugh with your silly faces and antics. Something’s in this world are priceless and unforgettable and you my sweet boy are one of those things.

There are so many great things about your brother and sister that make me smile; Evelyn is constantly meowing like a kitty cat (especially first thing in the morning), Ryan has taken to rubbing my arm and telling me he loves me. They love to make each other laugh (that is when Ryan isn’t screaming at her or biting her!) and truly love and protect each other. Ryan talks so much and is so busy I know that he would have been driving you crazy in all of your Star Wars toys and messing up your stuff. He pretends to be Darth Maul all the time and I think you two would have had many Star Wars light saber duels in his room. I miss you. There is nothing else to say but I miss you.

Everyday my prayer is, “God help me”. There are no other words I can utter or moan but I feel peace knowing He hears me. People you say, “oh you must be so strong, I couldn’t do what you have done”. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Your daddy and I do what we are doing because we don’t have any other choice. Just like the seven other parents whose baby died from cancer today and the seven other children who will die tomorrow from cancer. To lay down and die, to not get out of bed, to walk around in a coma, to turn my back on Ryan and Evelyn these are not options, they are things made for movies – not real life. The real answer is that God sustains us when we are not sustainable and He carries us when we cannot walk. There is and never will be an answer to why you are gone, there is only faith that God has you wrapped safely in his arms. My faith tells me that one day I will see you again but this day will be the beginning of forever in paradise. Save a place for me.