I remember when you were born. I had prayed for a baby with blue eyes and blond curly hair and there you were. God said yes.
I remember how you used to look up at me through those eyes. You looked into my face and smiled with all the trust in the world.
I didn’t know I wouldn’t be able to save you.
I remember your skinny boy legs with bruises on the shins from climbing trees and scooter falls. I remember your wrecking- ball head that could be wildly unpredictable in tickle fights on the bed when Daddy got home.
I didn’t know your spirit was destined to be crushed.
I remember waking up to your wee little face peering into mine in the morning light, your breath on my cheek. I can still see those dimpled cheeks when chocolate chip cookie goodness made you smile.
We had all the time in the world. Sometimes we had too much time. It seemed to stretch out before me in endless laundry piles and toy-strewn floors, sibling squabbles and homeschool lessons with no rest in sight.
I didn’t know I would miss that. What I wouldn’t give to go back there now.
I didn’t need to wonder who you’d become because I’d be there too. I didn’t stop to think who you’d grow up to be because it was unfolding before my eyes day by day.
Until you stopped.
We fell off a cliff that day and we just kept falling. None of us knew your road stopped there. We all kept going without you.
Now I can only remember. I remember tracing every line of your wee little face and loving how your left eyebrow flipped up. I thought I could see that any time I wanted to. When you graduated, when you walked down the aisle at your wedding, when you held your first child. I didn’t know I was reading a story that didn’t have those pages.
I didn’t know that life is long, but yours was not.
I’m not on this earth anymore to see grandchildren born and buy groceries. I’m on this earth just waiting to see you again. Did you know when you left that the world trailed in after you?
I didn’t know how much pain you carried. It was enough to make you disappear until nothing was left. I didn’t know that pain could be transferred to me. I asked to take your pain so you could be free, but I didn’t know that meant taking you to heaven. God said yes.
I prayed before God knit you into existence, and I prayed as you were unraveling. Your last breath exhaled as my prayers lifted you into His presence. I wish your eyes could look into mine again with all the trust in the world. But they are beholding your Savior. The One who made us both. Maybe He can tell you how much I miss you. Maybe He can trace your left eyebrow and tell you it’s a hug from me.
Will eternity really last longer than the pain of missing you right now? All I can do is look to my Father with all the trust in the world, and take His Word for it.
