Missing him -

I have a million song lyrics that could write this better than I can tonight. I found myself wishing it was Friday,
just so I could pour out my heart and few would find it their opinion to say I couldn't. 

But then I remembered that God is God on all the days, and I am here for me. I am writing for me.

"And I don't know what to say, to properly convey the lines of this earth, the lines of your face.
I am small and unsure, but more and more I learn - there are no words for this." 
~ "Skyline Hill" by Jenny & Tyler ~ 

I've felt hurt all day. I've been thrown into a day I haven't known how to handle. I've been grumpy and unsure and quick to tears all day. And mostly, I've been missing Avery. I wanted so much all day to put up a picture of his adorable face and just title it "Missing him.". No one could fault me for that. 

Oh, how true it is that there are Bad Days and Good Days. Don't ever underestimate that statement. I don't. Because I have lots of good days, lots of really, really good days. And then there are the days you wake up and wonder how on earth this all happened and how we got here, and how do we survive today. There are those bad days. Days you want to scream and cry and throw things and be mad. 

It isn't that I've been dwelling on it, isn't any huge thing, it just was ... a day of ... hurt. I hurt today.

I missed Avery, with his millions of smiles and the way he felt in my arms. 

I missed Avery, with the joy I felt taking him to the beach I prayed so much for him,
and the laughter we shared when the cold May water washed over his toes. 

I missed Avery, comforting him in the backseat and finding his passie, and rocking him to sleep.

I missed Avery, with the knowledge that I was his Auntie, and he was visiting my world, and I - his.
I missed Avery, and the hilarious way he loved the Mickey Mouse we bought him. 

I missed Avery, with his beams of light-year smile aimed at every living girl in the universe. 

I missed Avery, and the way my shoulder ached from holding him for hours, but I didn't want to let go. 

I missed Avery, the way his Mama's eyes teared up as tears streamed down my face when I held him for the first time. 

I missed Avery, and his bald, precious head that I kissed a million times in that short weekend. 

I missed Avery, who in all 4 sweet, amazing months old, who had so transformed his parents lives into living grace. 

I missed Avery, and the knowledge I could buy him a hundred pieces of clothing because he was special. 

I missed Avery, and I missed knowing he was here. 

It is days like today that kick over the bucket of goodness and make you feel like all that will ever flow out of you for days will only be tears. It is days like today that you can't wait to be over, but don't want to wake up to the same thing the next morning and you want sweet dreams in the night. 

This morning I woke up panicked, thinking something was terribly wrong and wondering what it could possibly be. And then, all these....almost 17 months later, I realized it was just my heart reminding me that waking up will always feel wrong when I realize that he is gone. It just IS. 

No ifs, ands, or buts. It hurts and aches like I wouldn't ever believe. 

June 1, 2013 ~ Colorado

Mid-day, I gave up trying to be normal, and went with being real....I posted on Facebook that every time a new acquaintance friends me on FB, my heart breaks a little bit more because they won't know who Avery is and will inevitably ask who he is.
And that it really is the little things that sting every time. 

It felt nice to just be real with that little part of my world, with my friends. And then someone posted a funny comment on my sad status...trying, I'm sure, to lighten the mood. It didn't work. I sat at my computer and cried. 

Avery was the presence of mercy and the living joy of answered prayers. To his parents, to his family, to his friends....to me. Every time I thought of him, I would burst into praise to God for His great gift of Avery, I was overwhelmed at the thought of him, easily moved to tears of thankfulness for him. I was so thankful that he was perfectly fine, and doing so incredibly well. 

And then all of a sudden, he was sick, and not doing well at all. When God took Avery to live with Him....I was beyond stunned. We begged the Healer to heal, and He said No. He said Not Here. There are no words for that. There still are no words for it. 

I wanted it here more than I wanted to live another day. 

My secondhand grief could not be higher if it was my own true nephew or family. 

And it is hard not to feel robbed. I had 5 short days with him, and lots of FB pictures, and it flew by, just like *that*. Like the snapping of fingers, 16 months - unbelievably fast. And now again, another 16 months. I'm still reeling in that shock. I'm still crying over the photos of his face. 

I'm still missing him, and I expect that I always will. You always miss the ones you love, whether they live here and you are separated by distance, or if they live in Heaven, and you are separated by this life and the next life.

And now is not when you come up with words that do not cover this, or when you ask me if we were close, or how an infection could spread so fast, because I don't know. I don't have answers.

I just know that the God I love and trust is still the God I love and trust. 

And it aches that I have to explain over and over who this little baby is that I can't stop talking about. 

It breaks my heart that I must go through the details over and over and over. It is all I can do to hold it together and make it to the part of the story where I choke out that he is in Heaven with Jesus. 

It aches because I don't want to say what I must say, that I want to show you the latest photo of him,
that I want you to be able to know him, that I want to be his Auntie again and hold him again.

It breaks my heart that he is gone. And I know most of you didn't know him. 

But see in my eyes and my heart that I loved him to distraction, to the moon and back. 

And when you've heard how he came into our world, and how he changed my life and my prayers and how he made me long for Heaven like I've never known and how he stole my heart with his smile ... when you've heard it all, and I'm choking back tears, then let me remember him daily. 

Because he is honestly one of the most precious and wonderful people I've ever known. 

And I was missing him today. 

With love always,

~ Jemmie ~