Last night Connor and I were talking about Abby (it's pretty much part of our bedtime routine), and as usual, he said that he was sad we never got to bring her home.  As I was thinking, yes, understatement of the year, he exuberantly exclaimed “I’m just going to get some wings and fly right up to Heaven and get her and put her in her crib!”  By exuberantly, I mean with a huge smile, bouncing on his bed, and reaching up to the sky as if to catch her that very moment.  It was one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen, and I'm happy to have an image of it frozen in my mind.

I know it’s common at his age to view death as being reversible, either for want of a loved one’s return, or for fear of it. The best I could do in that moment was to explain that the road to Heaven is a one-way street; Abby can’t be with us in body, but she's with us in our hearts (I’ve said and heard it so many times I'm starting to loathe the words; they almost sound cliché).  Wouldn’t you know my brilliant boy gave me a Dennis the Menace smile and said “But we’ll all get to be together again when WE die and go to Heaven!”  He looked at me as if to say “HA- I got ya!”  I love how he can find comfort and rejoice in that thought, even though I can’t yet.  I know his grieving will likely change as he matures in understanding, but sometimes I really I wish I could look at things the way he does right now.

It's a little harder than I thought

Writing about life post-Abby is a whole lot harder than I anticipated.  I suppose part of that is because a good deal of what I’m thinking and feeling still requires reconciliation/ sorting out.  I am posting now partly because a few people have emailed me to ask how things are- I find that shocking!  And rather flattering, I admit, so thank you for caring.  I’ve actually journaled a lot in the past few weeks; once I have better perspective I think I’ll be able to share more.

I wouldn’t consider myself an optimist, but the truth is things right now are significantly different than I thought they would be.  For someone who deals with numbers for a living, I completely ignored statistics associated with Abby’s condition.  I rationalized that someone has to be in the small percentage of people who live with HPE, even if only for a few months or years, so I should prepare to be one of them.  Plus, I was afraid if I expected her to die, I would be wasting time that should be spent preparing for her care.  I know, it doesn’t make any sense.

These days I view time in terms of Abby’s birth, so to give perspective, she turned 7 weeks on NYE.  I say it in the present because that’s how Connor talks about her.  He asks me how old she is in Heaven, when her birthday is, what we’re going to do to celebrate it, and how old he will be when she’s a grown up.  I considered explaining to him that she will never age; she died at 4 days and she will eternally rest as a 4 day old baby, but he really likes the idea of her growing up in heaven right along with him.  So I let it be; she's growing in Heaven everyday, just like he is here on Earth.  We’ve actually been discussing things we can do “with her” like having a snack time with her at the cemetery or reading her his new books (yes, I did take that idea from Elizabeth Edwards).  I think this is one of the hardest things to deal with; I can have a relatively good day, then when I put him to bed Connor will start talking about her in ways that just tug at my heart.  And it's so hard to not cry in front of him.