June 2, 2016 -

"When one person is missing, the whole world feels empty." - Pat Schweibert

Today, more than any other day, it's hard to write down what I feel and it's hard to know what to say. 

It's hard not to feel every second pulsing with the words "He's gone.....he's gone....he's gone." 

It's hard to forget the trauma of the worst day. 

It's hard to believe we have to wait the rest of our years here until we see him again!

 Most days, it can't get here fast enough. I miss his happy face and belly laughs. 

June 2, 2012, I awoke with the dawn and took pictures of the sunrise 

on the day God would heal and raise up Avery.

.... and a few hours later, he was gone. 

Never have I been more.....utterly shocked and stunned. 

We believed. We prayed. We knew the Healer could heal. 

We waited for the dawn, for the rolling away of the stone, for the veil lifting....

Did we wait and pray in vain? 

Did God not hear us? 

Doesn't He know that we can't let him go? 

"HOW could this have happened?", I sobbed to my best friend Laurie on the phone that afternoon.

"He was perfectly fine, and now he's gone! Why didn't God heal him here? How did.....how can this be?"

I couldn't breathe. There was no air. There was no day. There was no night. There was no color.

There were my sobs, my screams and the silence after the screams is a quiet I can still hear in my head.

Writing it down 4 years later doesn't make it seem any more believable, 

except the grief and loss and nightmare memories remind me it's all too real.  

It aches and it stings and it does not lessen over the years.
Kaylee told me today that she doesn't expect it ever will.
In a way, I can't imagine why I would think it would. 

When Love misses something, it grieves for it.
I'll always love him. I'll always grieve the loss of him. 

And I'll always look forward to seeing him in Heaven. 

I gave myself over to loving him like I hadn't with a child,
even though I've deeply loved many children. 

It was worth it.

He was joy and life and giggles and slobbery kisses and laughed at my pirate stories. 

I don't regret a thing. How could I regret loving? 

It's both melancholy to miss him, and sweet to miss him, for in missing him,

 I knew him, and loved him with my whole heart. 

June 2, 2016 - This morning I awoke with the dawn, startled awake (like every year) 

with the feeling that something was horribly, terribly wrong. It was. It was June 2. 

Foggy mist hung through the trees and the sun spilled sunshine rays all over the neighborhood I grew up in. 

And somewhere in Heaven, Avery is alive. And so am I. 

He is gone from here, but he is not lost to us. 

God raised up Avery, just not in the way we hoped or expected. Instantly healed. Instantly alive. 

We do not pray or wait in vain. We pray and wait in HOPE. 

For we have been promised by One Who does not break His promises. 

And yet. Even now. "Jesus, my soul's hope and joy...."

The stone rolled away. The veil torn in two lifted for the final time. The rising from the grave. 

Instantly healed. Instantly alive. 

"The resurrection means everything sad is going to eventually come untrue,

and it will somehow be greater for once being broken and lost."~ Tim Keller

HLH could not take a baby boy of 16 months from this world because only 

Jesus gives and takes away. Only Jesus carries us away in His arms to Heaven. 

We wait for Jesus, and we thank Him for the joy and 

precious gift of a little man named Avery John Notgrass. 

You changed my world, just by being YOU. I miss everything about you! 

You are very much missed and always very much loved by your Auntie Jemmie, sweet little man. 

 ~ Auntie Jemmie ~

"Therefore - we do not lose heart. 

Even though our outward man is perishing, 

yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment,

 is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 

while we do not look at the things which are seen, 

but at the things which are not seen. 

For the things which are seen are temporary, 

but the things which are not seen are eternal." 

- 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 -

Avery is Forever.