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.