His seventh birthday was Saturday. I can remember the day he was born. Bryan and I were heading to Canada on a service trip for Labor Day weekend, and we stopped at the hospital to meet him. He was so tiny, but so alert, so full of life, even then.
We celebrated his birthday. He should have been there, enjoying his Iron Man cake, opening his presents, running around with his friends, but he wasn't. Well, not really. His body was there, under the earth, but his spirit was flying high above. We sat on a blanket next to the spot where the grass was just starting to sprout in the dirt, where flowers and balloons and gifts had collected. We ate his cake, lovingly made by a grieving mother for the son who would never taste it. We read The Birthday Monsters book to our children, and to his memory. We signed a card, we opened and assembled his Legos for him at his parents' request. Our children played, trying to climb the trees, finding "treasure" in the bushes. It was a beautiful afternoon, and that made it perfect and intensely painful at the same time.
He should have been there.
But he wasn't.
Someone's carelessness and inattention at a summer camp pool took him away over a month ago.
Yet I can still feel my lips on his hair, my hand on his head, as I gave him a kiss on the crown of his head. It was the last day of Vacation Bible School, and I was watching all of the children of volunteers for the hour before the action started. It the last time I walked him up the stairs to the main sanctuary, the last time I told him to have a great day. I remember thinking to myself that someday he would be too old for me to do kiss his head, too tall for me to even reach. A week later, I was with a good friend, purchasing clothes for him to wear in his coffin. Size 6 khaki slacks. Size 6 white button-down shirt. Size 6 navy blazer. All I could think was that nobody should be buying clothes this small for this purpose.
Eden, my sweet daughter who looked up to him probably more than anyone else she knows, who always wanted to be wherever he was, when I told her that he was gone, said through her tears, "I think the whole world is going to be sad." And in some sense, it was. Our whole world was sad; he was a very vibrant part of our amazing, tight-knit community.
I believe that he is somewhere better, that he is not sad at all, that he had the best birthday ever on Saturday. And I know that somehow good will come of it; maybe not enough to outweigh the tragedy, to make the stinging stop, but some good.
But I still miss him dearly. I ache for his parents. I wish it was all a horrible dream.
