Valentine's Day in Heaven

Dear Ethan,

Happy Valentine's Day, Sweet Boy!

How I wish you were here... but you are still Mama's Little Valentine!  Always will be.  I love you and miss you so much.

God continues to teach me so much about gratitude as I walk through this life without you by my side.  How I wish you walked next to me, tugging at my hand, always needing something...

It is amazing to think that you don't need anything from me... heartbreaking, yet at the same time, amazing.

The fact that all your needs are met... that you are perfectly happy and whole... it makes my heart smile, in spite of the constant ache.

How I long to tell you I love you face to face today...

How I wish I was receiving a sticky, handmade valentine sealed with a kiss from my one and only son.

Your sisters are beautiful... simply beautiful.

Their hearts shine... I know you know this already, and are so proud.

What is Valentine's Day like in Heaven?

I suspect it's not celebrated.

After all, you are surrounded by perfect love each and every day.  Valentine's Day has no place in Heaven.  It simply isn't needed.

Here on Earth, we need it.  We need a day to stop and take the time to show our love for each other just a little more purposefully and intentionally than we do most days.

But in Heaven?

You never forget to tell each other.  Jesus never forgets to tell you.

You are aware every moment of just how much you are loved.

You know to the full extent the love Jesus has for you, and the love Daddy and I and the rest of your family have for you... you know it perfectly.

Oh, how my heart rejoices at this!

Love,

Mama

My Heart

I know I never write on here anymore.  It's not my plan, in fact it's the opposite, but it's just what happens (or rather, what doesn't happen).

The reasons have nothing to do with Ethan... I love and miss him as much as I always have... even more if that is possible...

No, it's just that life gets in the way.  Life gets in the way of so many things.

But I can't complain when that life has included a beautiful, precious new baby and her incredible big sister... yes, life with a baby is busy.  Life with two children is even busier.  But it is such a beautiful busy.  And oh how I wish it was even crazier, with three children needing me constantly instead of two!

I have been sorting through our homeschool cabinet today, and it's amazing how tears have filled my eyes throughout the whole thing, and how those tears have just sat there, brimming... for hours.

I need them to fall, but I can't seem to let go.  There is a lump in my throat, and the only thing I can think to do is write.

I miss my son.  I miss him with everything in me.  Every fiber of my being.  I feel like I walk around with a heart that is permanently broken.  I know there is nothing anyone can do for me, not really... there is no mending this heart on this side of Heaven.

I'm being honest, because I don't think sugarcoating pain helps anyone.  It definitely doesn't help me, and neither does pretending.

But in the midst of the pain, God has graced us--- yes, graced us--- with unspeakable joy.  So while the pain is unspeakable, so is the joy.  It's like I said in an earlier post... it is possible for joy and sadness to run together...

I am in absolute awe of the little princess God has given us... Julia Carter has swooped into our lives and we are all putty in her hands!  She is an incredible, beautiful, sweet, fiesty, perfect and adorable, ball of energy!

Emily was an extremely easy baby (though we didn't know what that meant at the time, since she was our first), Ethan was a tad higher-maintenance than her (but not much!), and Julia gives us a run for our money! :)  But I simply cannot describe how sweet she is... it's amazing!

Yes, she has been such a balm to our hearts... mine, Josh's, Emily's... our extended family's... she is a Miracle Baby in every sense of the word.

The homeschool cabinet is hard because so many sweet "Ethan Memories" are wrapped up in the contents, like so, so many things in our home.  I started preschool with Emily right before I became pregnant with Ethan, and she actually prayed for a little brother or sister during one of our Bible lessons right around the time he was conceived!  The faith of a child...

The following year, Ethan witnessed her first weeks of Kindergarten, as I often held him in my arms (and many times nursed him) while we did school.

Just two weeks before his death, Emily learned to write their last name.

Just the day before his death, I read Junie B. Jones to her in the car on the way to Birmingham.

I look at her schoolwork from when Ethan was here, and the tears come.

I feel like I was so naive then.  There was an innocence there that no longer exists--- for me, for Josh, for Emily... for us all.

Daddy and I never imagined Emily and Ethan wouldn't grow up together, and neither did she.

Little Brothers are born, but they don't die...

I am a different person than I was before June 4, 2010.  I am not naive anymore.  I look in the mirror, and I feel like my face is old... like I can tell just from my appearance that I've lost a child, my precious Ethan...

No, I'm not the same person.  

But I'm a better person.  I know what matters in life, and what doesn't.  My heart aches for others, particularly for those who have lost a child, in a way I never knew was possible.  And I know God in a way that, to be honest, I never wanted to know him.  It's an intimacy that gives me my every breath.  My heart, though broken, is continuously being shaped by the Potter.  He promises to keep working with the clay.

Yes, I'm a better person... and God and my son have made me that way.

Ethan's First Birthday

No words tonight...

Just so much love.



(Click pause on the music player at the bottom of this page before clicking on the video.)

Grandpa and Ethan

Josh's dad was smitten from the start! :)

Here he is, beaming the afternoon Ethan was born...


... and getting his picture taken with his only grandson the next day.

12 Weeks

Ethan the evening before he went to Heaven, at the hotel pool with Mama, Daddy and Sissy!



Ethan met Jesus 12 weeks ago today...

when he was exactly 12 weeks old.

That means from now on, he will have been out of our arms longer than he was in them...

It is, as my father-in-law said the day of Ethan's wake, ridiculous.

Ethan should be here with us.

It feels as if he has been part of our family forever. He was loved beyond measure from the moment we knew we were pregnant. And then when we saw him for the first time, we realized we hadn't even gotten started!! We were smitten--- all of us!

He spent nine months in my womb, 12 weeks in our arms, and is now spending eternity with Jesus.

Sometimes dates are full of meaning, and sometimes they aren't. I would like to share how I feel about this line we are crossing today--- the one that says we have now been without him longer than we have been with him (in our arms):

It means pretty much nothing to me.

What I mean is, it doesn't diminish the time we had with him, or make the future any easier, or enable us to be further along in "the grief process"...

He is our son.

If we live another 70 years on this Earth without him, it will not make it any easier. They say you eventually adjust to the grief--- learn how to live with it--- and we are trusting that is true. But the fact that we have been without him longer than we've been with him will never make it easier or make him less real to us.

How can he be less real? He is still alive.

Mama, Daddy and Sissy love you, Ethan... See you soon, Sweet Boy!!