HI MOMMY....

Dear Mommy

I wanted to remind you that I haven’t gone, I love you and I am still with you. I LOVE YOU!!!! I know you are in Nova Scotia, I know you are sad when you visit Nanny's but please remember that you are not alone. Remember yesterday when you went to Victoria Park for a long walk? You did Jacob’s ladder a whole bunch of times and it was really hard. I was climbing right beside you. I know you heard me cheering for you and encouraging you to keep going. I know you heard me tell you that God loves you so much and you are worth fighting for. I am so proud of you that you work so hard, that you think of me when you want to quite and remember how hard I fought to beat cancer. So when you are really tired I am right beside you too, just like you did for me.

Christian's footprints on the beach

Then you went to Melmerbry beach to meet papa, Ryan was so excited! You went on a really long walk down towards the rocks on the beach.  Well I was walking with you keeping you company. You stopped and sat in a water pocket and looked out at the ocean, I was sitting right beside you holding your hand. I know you felt paradise in that moment. You imagined that that was what heaven might look like. And you were right! It is amazing! The oceans are brightest and the clearest blue and the beaches are overflowing with crystal sand – not hot to walk on and never any rocks to step on, only perfect ones for skipping and throwing in the ocean! There is tons of laughter and giggles, there are couples loving their time together. People walk the beaches holding hands and families sit together to build castles in the sand. Earth is a piece of heaven – only up here everything is perfect. You will see one day, I will show you everything when you get here.

Speaking of that I know you are so desperate to see me and hold me again. But you still have work to do at home. God has a purpose for you, even thought you might not know what it is. I can see it and it makes perfect sense. You have to believe what is in your heart and trust that God will not let you down. I know you want to help other people but you are just not sure how to do it. But if you can stay positive and keep your heart open then you will know what it is you are meant to be doing.

Victoria park pool

I love Joshua so much. I can see he recognizes me in the picture on the floor in Grammy’s basement. I visit him at night so he doesn’t forget me – he is so cute and he loves Evelyn and Ryan so much. They are amazing big brother and sisters, I am so proud of them. I know you worry about Evelyn and Ryan, you worry that they are suffering because I died. But remember that instead of wondering and worrying about them – pray for them. God wanted me to remind you that you can ask him for help for little things as well as big things. He is always listening to your cries. He knows your heart and He understands your hurt. He loves you. Keep breathing slowly.  Remind daddy how much I love him and tell him to stop grinding his teeth and to trust that he is an amazing daddy. Ryan loves him so much and looks up to him like I did. I go with them whenever they play golf. I watch Daddy swing and I sit in his lap when he drives the cart. God purposely put you guys together and you are a great team. I am so glad God chose you for my parents. I am so lucky! 

 

Victoria park - one of your favs

I know you miss me mommy, but in those moments of intense pain and sadness remember how I used to sit in your lap and wrap my arms around your neck. I would kiss you incessantly so you would laugh and have to stop crying. Remember how I used to rub your arm when I was falling asleep? I still do those things. Sit still long enough to feel me and know me – I haven’t left you – I promise. I am still keeping my eye out for Luca – he is fighting so hard. And I am watching over Sadie at the hospital at night. Keep praying for them, God is listening to you, He told me himself. His giant hands are protecting them and his angels keep watch over them.

I will talk to you again soon Mommy. Keep writing me letters and letting me know how everything is going. I love you so much – all the way to the death star and back!

PS I see you have been playing Star Wars Angry birds and they made some new levels! They are so hard but I am right beside you while you try to get those darn piggies, well get them together like we used to. Love you

Turns to Gold

Hello sweet heart. Tonight I am in one of your favorite places. I can feel and see you just about everywhere. I see a landmark and imagine what you did and said, I see a person you loved and remember how you sounded when you spoke to them and how you looked when you hugged them. I remember your favorite places to go, foods to eat and the people you wanted to be with. You loved playing fish with nanny Lou at the kitchen table, you loved playing in your room at Nanny Marilyn’s house. I can see you sitting at your little table in the living room eating your breakfast and watching cartoons. You loved throwing rocks down at Victoria Park and walking along the beach at Aunty Janice’s’ cottage. You loved the parks at bible hill and Victoria Park. You loved playing with Aunty Judy in her backyard and you loved playing hockey with your cousins over at Uncle Sandy’s house. As a baby you spent many hours in Uncle Brent and Aunty Rhonda’s pool and playing ping-pong in their basement. You are everywhere here in Truro and now you are nowhere. I sit here at the computer and I am desperate for you. My longing for you is secret and the smile I put on my face is a façade to cover the pain that emanates from my heart. Some days I can keep myself busy enough to not have to miss you too much. But here in Nova Scotia, where you heart lived, I can’t escape your beautiful smile and your infectious, joyous ways. I love to remember the special way your affection made me feel. You were the first person to introduce unconditional love to me.  And remembering the times you spent here and watching you love other people, remember the moments that filled your heart – breaks mine. I want to feel that immense joy again. And in the still of the Nova Scotia nights – with the stars so clear – and my mind so fragile I can’t help but sit here and cry.  Still to this day I wonder how on earth this happened to us. I used to watch the commercials for the children’s hospitals and see the bald little kids and felt pity for them. I wondered whose child gets cancer? Not mine. Not yours. Wrong. I lay in my bed in the middle of the night wide awake tormented by your last days. I cannot stop playing them back.

Ryan enjoying the beach at the cottage

Just about on a daily basis I ask God the question, Why? And then I ask the question How? Why did this happen to our family? Why did you have to suffer so intensely? I think back to some of your treatments and things that happened to you in the hospital and I am filled with rage. No little person should understand and know that depth of pain and hurt you experienced; or the fear and the anxiety of not knowing what’s coming next. Begging and screaming for me to not leave you when I want to go a get a quick cup of coffee at the cafeteria. I wonder what horrors played in your mind when I walked toward your hospital room door. What did you think was gong to happen to you when I left? I knew that there was no boogie man around the corner, no painful procedure on schedule for you. But the pain and fear that griped your mind in that time of your treatment haunts me. I couldn’t protect you; I couldn’t protect your soul and stop the panic of the unknown. I couldn’t help you. But I loved you and held you tight. And I know you know that I loved you with you all my heart, and all of my soul and to the bottom of my toes and to the top of tatooien and around to the death start.

Enjoying the beaches of NS

The answer to why is that there is no answer and no explanation. And the question

How? How do I survive? How do I continue to wake up each morning and move my feet? How I do I look at my other children and not see their brothers face? How do I watch them interact and not wonder how life would be different if Evy, Ryan and Josh’s big brother were still around? How do I explain to other people the lingering and shocking pain that still exists in my soul a year and a half later? The smile on my face covers the truth.  The phrase about my other children giving me purpose and “something to wake up for” is very true. But the pain is still the same, which never changes deep in my soul.  I watch your cousins and imagine what you would be doing with them. I imagine you growing taller and stronger and braver. I imagine you and Daniel playing ball hockey on the driveway for hours. I imagine you and daddy and uncle Kenny hitting the golf course. I imagine you and aunty Paula playing ball. I imagine you and papa cutting the lawn and worst of all I imagine you and your brothers and sister playing together at the beach. You four together are the perfect team. You are the perfect leader to our little squad. But then I am reminded that life isn’t perfect. It is far from perfect – its down right miserable some days. And my goal is to reduce the amount of yuck I feel. At the end of the day I ask myself, “Whose life did I make better today? Did my kids know that I loved them with all my heart? Did I squeeze each one of them and tickle their little tummies? Did I honor you Christian?” The purpose of my life is not to seek out this phenomenal joy that I am missing in you; but to bring joy to those around me. And if I can’t bring somebody joy then can I serve in God’s name? To make somebody else’s life just a tiny bit better. And maybe, just maybe some of the joy will stick to me and work its way into my soul like osmosis. The concentration of joy is small inside of me. But if I can help create joy around me then perhaps it will begin to penetrate my skin, my bones, my soul and all things will even out.

The other night Evelyn had a dream about you. I know you spoke to her because she is generally very vague and “fairy-tale” like with her explanations of her dreams. She told daddy that she had “the most amazing dream! She said you told her that the day after you died you were alive again and that everything was ok and that you were happy in heaven. You said that heaven was amazing. She said you told her that everything you touched turned to Gold. I hold onto these pictures in my mind. I know you are well taken care of and I wait for you in my sleep.  I love you.

The Crowell boys - forever

Hope ? Really ?

What do you hope for when the thing you really hoped for is gone? How can you dream about tomorrow when all you loved today has been taken? Where is hope when it seems like hope failed? What do I live for now? These are the questions I ask myself on almost a daily basis. It has taken me to a whole new level of thinking when it comes to hope. Hope no longer means that I want a big income tax return (or how about I just don’t owe our great government any money), a great seat sale, a nice haircut or delicious meal. It doesn’t even mean healing. The one think that I hoped for, that I yearned for, cried out for, ached in my heart for,  fell to my knees for didn’t happen. So what was the point of all the effort when the thing I wanted the most was not what I got.  What I got was a life I didn’t plan on having. I didn’t plan on spending the first few years of our marriage struggling to keep it together and the next few years fighting to keep my son.  Sure I got the house and the 2.7 kids (ok well actually I got 5 if we are going to be picky) but I didn’t get the dream that I scratched out on the back of my coil notebook when I was in high school and desperately in love with Sheldon (sshhh don’t tell anyone).  What I received was something greater because it wasn’t my plan it was God’s plan. I don't see it yet, but I do have hope. 

My only hope for a ‘good life” now is that God keeps His promises. Promises to redeem and to lift up. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted”. (Matthew 5:4). While out on a walk with a good friend the other night we spoke about missing someone you love so much, that we could never imagine being ‘given’ anything as good as what we had. There is NOTHING that I want more on this earth than to hold my son in my arms again. To be responsible for him and love him and touch him and hear his voice. How is it possible the God is able to redeem that type of pain? How can this wrong be made right? This type of desperate situation breeds a new form of hope. A hope that we can’t imagine. We can imagine every other thing “we want”. We can imagine the new car, the beautiful new baby, the raise, the house, the gorgeous husband (that’s for you Chris), the healing. We can imagine it because most of us have seen it or at least heard about it. But I do not have the wherewithal to imagine how God will weave this pattern to Good.  But if we believe that God is good, and only good, then we must hope for that which we can’t imagine, that which we can’t see. I can only have very small images in my mind of what heaven might look and sound like. What is might be like to hold my kids again. This is real hope.

Hope when everything else seems wrong and impossible. Death is the only permanent thing that man cannot fix. All the money in the world would not have saved my son, all the power in the world would not have kept him walking on this earth. We know the only person to conquer death is Jesus. He would not be kept down by evil. And because he conquered death He created a special kind of hope.  A hope to hold onto when there is no more hope. Hope in heaven, hope in redemption, perfection with the father, an eternal life that doesn’t end and our dreams will come true. Have you ever really taken a moment to think about what heaven might be like? Probably not. Most people don’t until they are forced to imagine what their loved ones might be doing. Will I see them again? Will we be just be spirits floating around each other? I like to think not. I believe it when the bible says in 1 Corinthians:

 For we know that when this tent we live in - our body here on earth - is torn down, God will have a house in heaven for us to live in, a home he himself has made, which will last forever.

This is my hope. My new house, my new body in heaven.  And until this day arrives I will live the way God has asked us to live. And I will hope for the day when I can touch my sons again. 

Pastor Chad reminded us the other day that when we ask the question, What is God’s will for me? What am I supposed to be doing? And i ask myself this question all the time now. The bible has a very clear answer – and it is great. “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in ALL circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. “ 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

God doesn’t require a lot of fancy things from us. He wants us to talk to him, lots. He wants us to rejoice and be happy, really happy and He wants us to be thankful.  If you do all of these things your heart will begin to align with God and everything else will make sense. Ok maybe not total sense but a peace will come to you that only God can bring. And things that shouldn’t be ok will somehow be ok. And the things you think you wanted, won’t matter as much. People you dislike won’t seem so irritating and the life you thought you wanted….well that probably will change too. Being content in your heart just as you sit tonight. That is peace and acceptance directly from God, who loves us more than we can fathom.  

Please say a prayer tonight for little Luca whose “sneaky tumor” (luca’s own choice words!) has returned and it trying to steal his life her on earth. His family is going to battle and he will need all the prayer warriors he can get. Please get on your knees for Luca tonight.

Christian, mommy loves you so much. I can’t put into words the pain of missing you each day. Thank you for staying close and reminding me you are near. I love you all the way to the death star and back.

The love of the Lord endures

Hello sweet Christian

I stare at the computer and wait for God to tell me something. But I hear nothing. So I play some music and hope to hear you in the words that come through the ear buds. What do I want to say? I feel like I say the same things over and over, in fact I know I do. I reread some of your letters over the past few weeks and I see the same confusion in my words. I see how mottled my thought process is, how lost I am in my emotions. Lost. That is pretty much exactly how I feel. My fingers are stationary on the keyboard for minutes at a time – I really just don’t know what to say anymore. Part of me feels like I shouldn’t be writing to you anymore. Like you have moved on to an amazing place and you keep getting these desperate letters expressing my feelings of loss and sorrow. The hurt in my heart never seems to lessen. I thought that it would. I thought that I would be “better” but instead I have discovered that I am just getting really good at pretending. Because it seems like the right thing to do. To be better. I mean come on its been almost a year and four months. I guess it is apparent now that its not going to get better. This is our life.

Instead I have decided that I just need to bide my time until we are joined together. I still remember sitting at the table with Doug and Loralie after we had both gotten the horrible news. I held Loralie’s hands across the table and asked her, “How do you live the rest of your life missing somebody?” And here I am now all this time later and I still don’t know the answer to that question. It is not supposed to be this way and yet it is. I know that I purposely put you to the back of my mind to lessen the pain but moments and memories jump at you and there is no escaping them. Today Evelyn asked me if you and her ever did an Easter egg hunt together. Then she told me that when you guys play My Little Pony together you are always the blue boy pony. Oh she misses you and she is just starting to realize it and express it.

 

And then there is God. It is Easter after all – even though I tried not to think about it. Because every holiday is a reminder that part of our family is gone. But here we are celebrating the resurrection of life, the reason you are in heaven right now, the reason I have hope. Without God all of this would be unbearable. I tried to describe to somebody the yesterday how God is holding us up while we walk THROUGH this valley of death. Its like my heart has been ripped open and I am in danger of bleeding to death, all of the blood and life is meant to drain from my body. And it should. Watching you die a slow death and then living without you is a surely cause for me to lay down and die. But I explained it that God has His massive hand over the bleeding, His paw is covering the gauging wound in my heart. And some blood is still trickling and seeping out the sides but for the most part my heart can still beat and I still have life. And He will hold His tremendous hand there until it has clotted enough for Him to let go. He will hold me until we walk out of this valley and begin our ascent to the top of the peak.  Christian I surely believe that God intends to use this to bring Him Glory – to show people that through Him we can survive. And thrive. I am waiting to find out what we should be doing. Where does my heart belong now? I talk about you to anyone who will listen. Then I talk about God because sure enough their first statement is, “I don’t know how you do it”. Well I don’t know either but we are.  And we have hope. Its funny that I can be so sad and melancholy yet still be full of hope. That is the great thing about hope – the thought that one day I will walk through those beautiful gates and you will run into my arms, together with Jackie, and my heart that has been fractured for so long will be whole again. That is what God does. He makes people whole again. And if it doesn’t happen until I am finally Home, that is ok. I know His hand will not leave my heart and allow me to bleed out. I believe that His glorious plan is going to be so amazing to look at in reverse. I saw that on a sign somewhere that life must be lived going forward but can only be understood in reverse. Enter faith. When nothing makes sense and there are no answers to your questions and there never will be; but you still cling to that tiny thread of hope and know that someday you will be ok.

 So I wait and hope and try to pray. I try to pray for other people, for Angelina and Chris, for their beautiful girls, Sadie and Ellie, I pray you are watching over them as well. They need to grow and heal and become strong. We saw so many miracles during your treatment I know that God can make all things new. I witnessed Him giving you back to us, even if it was just for a short season. I pray for Evelyn and her sadness and grief that has been hidden and stuffed away. She misses and loves you so much, you, her amazing big brother. I realize now when I watch her with Joshua how much of a blessing he is for our entire family. He makes Evelyn smile and Ryan is the only one so far to make him belly laugh. He is healing for them and he helps to bring newness and joy to their lives.

I miss you. But I understand that in your sweet short life, you accomplished more than some adult lives. The tasks that God set out for you, are done and your job is complete. I am trying Christian, I really am but it is so hard and it feels very lonely. Every day I think about honoring you. I get out of bed and put my feet on the floor and a smile on my face to honor you. Thank you for being such a sweet boy, for holding my face to give me kisses, for rubbing my arm when I am sad, for hugging my neck when I cry, for throwing your head back to laugh, for making your angry face when I teased you, for teaching me to fight for something I believe in, for showing me what true love looks like. You are my hero.

As I finish up this letter the song, Believe by Paul Janz comes up and the lyrics pop out at me and I know you are speaking to me,

“Believe in me, reach out with your heart, no power in the world will keep us apart. Believe in me and love will remain. Believe in your heart – love stays the same”

I love you.