Love you forever

If you live in the metroplex, you have hopefully been blessed to see the many beautiful rainbows over the Texas sky following the recent showers. It's a fun challenge to search the sky after each rain to see if a glimpse of heaven will come peeking through the gray skies to remind us of God's promises. Those reassuring rainbows have come in the form of rare double rainbows lately. And with each rainbow, come deep questions from Eli.

Mom - are you going to die? Am I going to die? How do we get to heaven? Why can't AJ come home so I can be his big brother?

If you read back in my blog there was a day shortly after AJ died that there was a post about a rainbow that stretched from one side of the earth to the other. Eli - roughly 3 at the time - said "Look mommy, AJ is sending that rainbow to show us he received our balloons". (We always send balloons up to AJ when we get them at various places.) That moment is a great memory of Eli's sweet innocence. Maybe it's him starting Kindergarten this year, but he has been asking so many questions lately. I started this post 2 days ago, and just last night before bed, Eli burst into tears missing AJ and wanted to look at pictures. My heart sunk! If I can't even comprehend the magnitude of what has happened, how can he? I sat there with tear filled eyes looking at the pictures with Eli feeling like a failure because I couldn't answer his questions. Intellectually I couldn't, emotionally I couldn't, I couldn't say a word to him other than "I love you and AJ and Alex with all of my heart...don't ever forget that!"

Maybe some people think I am crazy for not being 'over it' yet, but those are the ones that don't understand that I will never be 'over it'. Not a day goes by that AJ isn't spoken of in our home. We still hurt and cry. We struggle to answer questions that have no answers. We look at rainbows and hold on to the promise that some day we will see him again.

When your child dies, some things in life become very clear - others not so much. Death seems less scary because I know that it results in seeing him again. Some relationships are stronger and some fade into the darkness of nothingness. We lack answers to questions. Question if God really meant for that to happen...is this really my life now? Who am I now? Who was I then? And of course the "Seriously??" moments that I simply have no words for.

But then...occasionally there is that moment of perfect clarity that I pause and realize that through my weakness, His strength is made perfect and His promises never fail us. These are the moments of amazement that this is my life and wonderful things are a part of it because AJ lived and died.

One of my favorite books is "Love you forever". It's about a little boy that starts out as a baby and grows to a man within 15 pages. As he grows, his mom would always rock him and sing, "Love you forever, like you for always, as long as I'm living, my baby you'll be". This book makes me cry faithfully every time not only for my living sons, but because as AJ's mom that's the one thing I can do every day for him...love him forever because he'll always be my baby!

Another Dream...

The intellectual side of me says that dreams are a result of something that is imposing on our subconscious mind. The sentimental, faithful side of me believes that dreams can sometimes be a window into the unknown...occasional glimpses of heaven?

Early Easter Sunday morning I had a dream that I am certain was a message from heaven. My sister-in-law's mother, Bea, passed away in late January after many years of failing health. She was fragile and petite when she went home to the Lord.

In my dream, all of my SIL's family was there...we were there dropping off food. Everyone was happy and doing well. It was current date. As I was leaving out of this house, I stepped down a few concrete steps and Bea was standing there in a tan linen suit, healthy and strong. We embraced as we had the following conversation:

She said to me, "Why don't you ever come visit me?" I replied, "Because it makes me cry." She said, "It's ok to cry." I of course was crying in my sleep at this point.
I asked her, "Is he ok?" (referring to AJ). She said, "He's just fine." I asked her to please hold him for us and she said, "I do every day." I asked her to kiss him and tell him how much we love him...

At this point I woke up sobbing...I cried all day and continue to cry as I type this. It was so real, so vivid! Is it possible that God gives us the opportunity to see loved ones in our dreams to calm our hearts? We of course went to visit Bea today and leave her a little flower and a pin wheel for AJ. Til we meet again in our dreams...