25 years in TIME Flies and other Thoughts

It doesn’t seem like yesterday (as I hear some say). It seems like FOREVER ago!

And maybe the fact that I have lived in 5 States since. It is like I have had 5 more lifetimes since.

August 10th he would have been 37 years old.
We always have Pizza on that day. He always wanted Pepperoni Pizza for his birthday.

He was 9.5 pounds at birth. 21 inches long. A Whooper!
And Colic till he found his thumb at 3 months.
He sat up at 9 months and stood and bared weight on his legs at 11 months and walked at 16 months. He started talking at about 2 and wasn’t interested in Potty Training till close to 4!

He loved bugs from an early age and we always had some bug in a jar on our kitchen counter.
He was a teaser and loved to play tricks on his family.
He loved his dog Otto. It was his sister’s dog too but he spent more time with Otto.
He loved to Fish. Him and his dad did Ice Fishing.
He was compassionate to his friends and kind to his family.
Very thoughtful!
He often put others first or considered them before his own wants.
His sister and him were 22 months apart and best of friends. He always made her laugh.
He made others laugh too.

He was 12 years and 18 days old when he went to Heaven.
AVM- (Arteriovenous Malformation)

I started writing on the Open Diary in 2000, 4 years after his death and I shared about NAF as I called him. His life and what happened and then various feelings over the next 13 years till the OD shut down.

It’s a crazy thing grief… you can go days, weeks, months and now years between out of the blue moments that grab you and bring you to your knees.
For a long long long time, Christmas was hard. About 6 years ago it stopped being hard.
And the 4th of July (a favorite holiday of his), That was hard for quite a while.
The first few Halloweens (even though we NEVER participated in it) was hard.
Every other Holiday or Celebration or Day of Memory, was not hard at all for me.

Very rarely, but occasionally, when I am talking about him with someone I hear my voice crack.

I still have some of his toys and his other possessions including his Black Toothbrush!
Some of his GI Joe men have always guarded my Kitchen Cabinets.
2 Memory Plaques hang on the wall. One I made and one my dad’s wife had made.

I read a book early on about a Pastor who’s 3 year old son passed away from some ailment. He said, “Had that boy not come into our lives at all, our lives would have been strangely incomplete.” I took on that statement for many years.

Our son is buried in Monument, CO. (that is his vessel of which his soul once possessed).
We had a Headstone made with a father and son fishing in the mountains and the dog Otto near by. The last time we saw that Headstone was just after they mounted it. We haven’t been back since.

On the funeral card we had this saying-
We give them back to you, O Lord, who first gave them to us, and, as you did not lose them in the giving so we do not lose them in the return. Not as the world gives do you give, O Lover of souls! For what is yours is ours also, if we belong to you. Life is unending because love is undying, and the boundaries of this mortal life are but a horizon, and a horizon is but the limit of our sight. Lift us up, strong Son of God, that we may see further! Strengthen us in faith that we may see beyond the horizon! And while you prepare a place for us, as you have promised, prepare us also for that happy place, that where you are we may be also, with those we have loved, forever.

I smile when I think of my Boy.
How blessed we were to have had and raised him.

Nathan
8-10-84 to 8-28-96