Milestones

Someone asked me today if these milestones (Matthew’s birthday) are hard because it reminds me of James. I would have to say that every day there are reminders of James. Some days more then others, but he’s never far from my mind. Birthdays and such don’t really have any more difficulties then an average day can. The mind has it’s own way of working and you just never know what’s going to set it off or trigger it. Although James isn’t here, he’s still part of my daily life. I don’t think so much on what he would be doing or what he is missing because he’s not missing anything, we are. It’s more just little memories triggered by sayings or things I see or the kids do. Matthew brings back a lot of these memories as more character starts to shine through and we are reminded of a little boy who did the similar things not long ago.

Rebecca has been struggling through her grief this past week. I have a photo album of James’ 2007 pictures downstairs in the living room. Every other day it is her turn to spend Quiet Time downstairs and twice this week I heard a crying girl down there. She misses her brother and it’s so hard to know what to say to her. I asked her if she rather I take the photo album away so that she wouldn’t be tempted to look at it and start crying, but she wanted it left there. She also knows that it’s okay to look at them, to remember and to cry. She has developed a bond with her little brother Matthew over the past half year, but yet her bond for James has not been broken by this, she still misses him.

Matthew has a great love for the pig in this picture. The pigs name is “Babe”. We receive “Babe” as a gift while James was in ICU and thought it so appropriate (not that it was given for this reason, it just came at the right time) to receive a singing pig at a time when James had fallen in love with the movie “Babe” and would watch it for endless hours. James actually did not like the pig, it scared him, but for the rest of us it reminds us of that precious movie. Babe the pig sat in our room on our dresser for some time. Mostly he sat quietly but occasionally somewhat tapped the button to let him sing. We slowly began to realize that no matter what Rebecca was doing at that time (even if she was in a deep sleep), if the pig sang, Rebecca cried. This was reinforced when Matthew fell in love with the singing pig and liked to play with it. Upon too many tearful mornings for Rebecca we hid Babe so Matthew would no longer play with it. He looked for Babe whenever he came into our room, but Babe was hiding in our armoire …. until one day Rob left the armoire open just a little too long and Matthew discovered where his dear piggy friend was hiding. And now he will stand by the cupboard and point and ask for the pig. We turn it off and he plays with it and quickly loses interest because it doesn’t sing. Rebecca is fine to see Babe, as long as he is not singing.

We will have many milestones to work our way through yet. Often I find that when I think something is going to be difficult or bother me it ends up going okay and it's the sudden reminders and strong memories that are more difficult to deal with. Sometimes this can bring me down, but most of the time it is short term and then I don't mind so much, for I enjoy remembering my boy, even if the memories make me sad ... I don't want to forget him and sometimes I feel like he's fading away already. I am so thankful for the hours of homevideos and 100's of pictures we have to keep the memory strong. We miss him, but we have such joy in knowing he is at rest and comfortable now.