Facebook and OneDrive keep sending me memories, and there are a lot.
I mean, it's Trisomy month, plus the pandemic started four years ago, or at least the shutdown did, and I took pictures and/or video every day to document it.
Sometimes, sometimes memory is where I'd rather be anyway. This picture, taken on a Sunday, was when things were oh so new. Your brothers prepared and passed the sacrament to us. You were there, they were there. So much has changed since this picture.
Andrew graduated just over a year later and went to serve a mission in Arizona and now lives in Provo.
Michael's papers are in and he's waiting for his call.
And you, my son, you've answered your own call to serve, but while you did have a farewell, you won't be having a homecoming, not on this side of heaven.
I made a deal (or I tried to) ten years ago that you would stick around until we were done with missions, in about 13 years, and then we would renegotiate. I meant I wanted 13 more years, not 13 years total. But I think we all knew you didn't have three more years. You held on until Andrew got home. It was so close a couple times, but you persevered, and I'm grateful.
But I still miss you.
I think back to that last night, and it still doesn't seem quite real, and yet at the same time it sometimes seems more real than anything since then.
I mean, really, how does this world keep turning, keep going, time keep passing, when you aren't here???
Will Friday into Saturday always hurt?
Three months down and a lifetime to go.
I love you.
The time machine I dream of would not merely travel backward and forward.
It would have a button for lingering in the moment.
xoxoxoxox
ReplyDelete