Uncategorized

9 months

On December 6, 2016 by Michelle Love

Oh BJ. My sweet boy. My first child and my first glimpse of understanding just how much God must love us. I cannot believe it has been 9 months since you left us. This day is one I knew would hit me harder than usual. You’ve been gone now for as long as I carried you. 9 months of loving you without having seen you. 9 months of knowing you were there, and wanting to hold you. 9 months of the anticipation of seeing your face. For the past 9 months, I have carried you in my heart. I still have great hope and anticipation of seeing you again, but it’s also mixed with inexplicable pain. I don’t know how long I will have to walk this life without you. There is no date to look forward to seeing you again. I go outside and look up at the stars at night and I wonder. My chest physically hurts with the void you left. I look for signs of you everywhere and there is truly not a moment when you aren’t in my thoughts. You are missed by so many… Carly has pictures of you in her locker. She wears your orange band every day, and the mustard seed necklace that she put on you Dec 9, 2015. She brings you up a lot and talks about her memories of things you said or did. She looks so much like you. Matthew misses you too. He just got his license yesterday. You two should be riding around together just like you always planned. We gave him a little special gift for his birthday last week, so your memory will always be riding with him. Carly looks to Matt now to be her big brother. He does a good job with that too. You two were always good with younger kids. Matt, Wyatt and Hunter are so tall, and strong and tower over me just like you did. They give me a hug when they see me. That means so much more than they could ever know. I catch myself wishing you were standing there with them, and I imagine how tall you’d be now. I know you would have your strength back by now because you never quit. You always pushed through. It’s not in our makeup to quit and I never will either. Every time I get knocked down by all this, I will get back up. I still hear you telling me to ‘put some muscle in it!’

I have missed you terribly for 9 months, BJ, and I will miss you every day after this. The hardest thing I have ever known is that I couldn’t fix this or change places with you, and that as much as I love you, it wasn’t enough to keep you here, and I would have to watch you leave. Even with me standing there begging for you to stay, you couldn’t do it anymore.

I know you’d say, mom…. “I love you more than anything! Everything will be ok.” It’s the same words you said on your way out to PICU at Duke that day. I hear you say that and I see you in my mind. I love you more than anything BJ. No matter how much time goes by, that will never change.

#CureForBJRound2 #BJStrong