The World Keeps Turning

Dear Aaron,

Fall is here.

A few weeks ago I sat on the patio, often trying to find a little shade, and alternating putting my feet on the hot pavement because it felt good, and picking them back up because it burned.

Today I don't look for the shade because, even though it's just after 7, the sun is down, the sky is getting darker above me. I wear fuzzy socks on my feet and a hoodie to protect me from the chill.

A few more weeks and I'll pull the flowers from the gardens, turn off the sprinklers, and get things ready for winter. I won't sit on the patio after that for several more months.

Time keeps moving. The world keeps turning. 

I had a favorite song as a child (okay, a lot of favorite songs), but this one compared the world to a feris wheel, and a merry-go-round.

The world turns round like a Ferris wheel.

Some times you're low and sometimes you're high.

But even way down you can never forget

The thrill you feel when you're touchin' the sky.

I think even now, I do have some high points, although I don't know that I feel like I'm touching the sky. I do remember some incredibly high points in your life. The time your echo showed "normal cardiac function when you were about six weeks old, after you'd been to the PICU for heart failure. That was the first time of many that we were in that unit. I was so terrified, so heartbroken, and then when we got that news after a week...  I mean, I think you could have powered the whole hospital on my joy! 

Your first birthday was another. 

The world turns round like a merry go round.

It lets some off and it takes some on.

Some horses are high and some horses are low.

Some turns are short and some turns are long.

And then, your turn ended. So much longer than we'd been told we could plan for, and yet still too short. So we now enter the season where your decline sped up. You were in eighth grade, but you didn't go very much. I think you missed more school days that you attended. You loved going to school, being with your classmates and Holli. But your body was done. 

We're a determined group, our family, and I think that determination (some call it stubbornness) is what kept you here as long as you were. 

And I'm grateful for that. 

The world keeps turning, keeps moving forward. I get farther and farther from when I last saw you. 

Sunday I'm speaking in church. The topic is "Overcoming the World and Finding Rest in Christ." I have no idea what I'm going to say yet. But I think you did this. You did overcome the world. The rest of us may rush around, caught up in the thick of thin things. But you didn't. You found joy in simplicity, and courage and endurance through more than most adults deal with. 

I sit here as the sky darkens. I smell the smoke from someone's firepit and hear the crickets still chirping. Kids playing games
call to each other. My outdoor lights turn on and the little fountain in my planter trickles. 

Peace.

Rest.

Comfort.

Love you, kiddo.

Love,
Mama

It ends with death it begins with birth . . . 

It's my turn on earth. 

Carol Lynn Pearson