The Morning Next

The last thing I expected when I checked my email yesterday morning was news that…
that our son had died.

It’s amazing how much a child whom we’ve never met and never held can hold such a large space in our hearts. All day yesterday, I shifted between feeling normal and feeling a wound inside… right where James belongs. The outpouring of love from friends, family and so many people I’ve never met has been stunning. This blog normally gets 5-15 visitors per day. In the last 24 hours, our site has had over 1000 hits. I pray that our loss of James will encourage others to living more daring lives for Jesus. What we do makes a difference to others. I only wish we could have gotten to James sooner.

I hope he slipped into a peaceful coma before he died.
I hope he wasn’t alone.
I hope this was all a big mistake.

I have his towel on his hook.
I have his photo album in my suitcase.
I have his blanket half-finished on the counter.
I have this spot on my lap for both my ‘twin’ boys.

And it just feels so empty and wrong.

I know that Jesus is having a great playtime with my little boy up in heaven, loving each other like only they can. And I know my Grandpas, who never got to meet my children, are loving on him for me. Oh, but oh, I wanted to hold him. We had such dreams of brotherly fun between James and Jordan. Even their names fit together.

It would take a miracle for us to receive another child to adopt at the same time as Jordan. It was a miracle that we got both James and Jordan’s referrals. So if God has somebody in mind for us, we’ll get another referral in record, impossible time. But we are not expecting one. Hoping, maybe, but not expecting.

Thank you everybody for your love, for your condolences, for how you are loving us and treating James like part of our family. Even though he never had our last name, even though we never met him, we consider him part of the family. A sweet friend recently lost a baby in the womb, perfectly created, but unable to sustain life. I feel like I was pregnant with twin boys and one was lost halfway through the pregnancy.

My day is filled with sighs and quickly dropping tears. My day is also filled with love and laughter and life. My daughters are simply adorable and sweet together. I don’t feel like the walking wounded, like somebody who has suffered great loss… I just feel like a little toddler sized hole has been cut from my heart. Thank you Jesus, for loving him more than us, for loving us more than we deserve.

Please pray for us as we have to leave our daughters for 10 days in the midst of our grief. We will say goodnight to them on Thursday night and not see them again until the following Sunday. I take comfort that they’ll be with my parents and with my sister, both of whom I love dearly and trust completely. Thank you, Mom and Dad for coming by last night to talk and cry with us. Thank you Michael and Heather for the flowers and card; they helped me let some good tears come and they are a sweet memorial on our table. Thank you Amy and Hollie for your friendship and offers to help any way you can. Thank you to all of you… between facebook, the Reece’s Rainbow forum, this blog, phone calls and our email, we have been sheltered by your love and prayers. Please don’t stop praying yet.

I’m going to make a thank you letter to the orphanage with a picture of James and of our family to bring with us as a memorial for James to put up there. He wasn’t an orphan any more. And he definitely isn’t now.