It's Been Six Years

Six years ago tonight the angels came for Isaiah. We had prayed for weeks for his Creator to take him home, to end his pain. When the memories come I push them away. It's still too difficult to think about what really happened.

When I think of his feeding tube being removed it kills me. Herpes destroyed all of his brain except for the most basic of functions. The only way for him to be at peace was to remove the tube or overdose him on his pain meds. To see my grandson starve to death is a picture I want to forget forever. To hear him crying and be told it was only a reflex devastated me.

The child was never laid down, he was always in arms or snuggled up to his mommy at night. We had plenty of waiting arms for him to be passed to. We had a lifetime of love to give him in a very short time.

I remember the day the doctors told us that he would never be perfect. I told them that perfect to us and perfect to them was different. Perfect to us was as simple as sharing an ice cream cone with his grandfather. That was before they told us he would die.

I couldn't be at the last meeting with the doctors to hear that news. I knew that's what they would say and I didn't have the strength to hear them utter the words. We brought Isaiah home that night and waited. We waited and watched. We waited and prayed. We waited and cried.

Then there came the moment when my daughter took him into her arms and put the stethoscope to his heart and there was no beat, there was no pulse. He was gone.

We waited again. We waited for the men in the black van to come and take Isaiah. We passed him around. We kissed him. We loved him physically for the last time and we cried. When the men came for him my daughter carefully and lovingly strapped him into his car seat. We covered his tiny body with his blanket and we cried.

At his viewing we saw the tiny angel in his tiny bed that would hold him now. We wrote him letters, we gave him trinkets and we cried.

At his memorial service we were amazed at the packed seats. Isaiah touched more people in his short life than most people do in a life time. We cried.

At his burial his grandfather took the shovel and covered him with the earth that would keep him warm for eternity and we cried.

Today the pain remains but the tears are few, they hurt too much, they remind us of that time.

Today I'm thankful for the time we had with him. I'm thankful that our family is stronger. I'm thankful that nothing that bad can happen to us again. I'm thankful we have a new perspective on our current problems. Once you've lost a tiny grand child nothing can be as bad, nothing as traumatic.

One day I'll be able to look at his pictures again. We wait until we can see him again. We wait until we can hold him again. We wait and inside we cry.