I am going to write about it today

He would be 18
     ~   tomorrow

and it seems both like yesterday and like forever and never ago all at once.

His name is Evan Daniel and he lived for 8 months hidden and kind-of alone with me
     and then for just 10 minutes  and one breath 
                   18 years and a day ago.

and now he lives with Jesus where it is forever and now  -- forever. And he waits for me.

It was such a hard thing. One of those things that really should never happen. You are not supposed to loose and bury your children, your babies. You are not supposed to dedicate them when they are already actually and really in Jesus' arms. But we did. I didn't think, even then that it would kill me. What I wanted, though, was to fall, like Alice down the rabbit hole, but into darkness and keep falling for ever, and pull the darkness over my head and never come back. I thought of that: literally, but I didn't think of dying. THANK YOU, JESUS.  Thank you that You found me first.

As I sat in the darkness, He came and sat beside me and asked if he could just sit there. He did and He is light, so he brought me back. He took me to Psalm 139...took me by the hand and led me gently there and led me through it:

O Lord, you have searched me
   and you know me.
You know when i sit and when I rise,
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
...
Where can I go from your Spirit?
And where can I flee from you presence?
...
If I say, 'Surely the darkness will hide me
   and the light become night around me'
even the darkness will not be dark to you
for darkness is as light to you.

Then as I read on, it was like I was over hearing a conversation between Evan and Jesus:

For you created my inmost being,
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
...
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place ...
{Evan's frame had been hidden from us until the end when we found he was trisomy 18 and his frame was bent, and unformed ~  and as the doctor's put it, "incompatible with life"}
your eyes saw my unformed body;
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be. ...
When I awake
I am still with you.

I know he did: Evan closed his eyes here after that one breath, and opened them looking deeply into Jesus' eyes. There he has a new frame. Jesus told me, as I read it, that He had ordained Evan's days and 8 months and 80 years when compared with eternity are not all that different ~ and I would see that some day.

I haven't 'felt' it in years. I always know it ... this empty spot, this space in our family is always there for me. . .the other place at the table, the other brother. But it has been years since I have tripped over it. It is almost like muscle memory -- my flesh grieves and then I realize what is happening. It is like that this year. Maybe it is because I am on my way to help a dear friend at the delivery of her baby; maybe it is the weather; maybe it is because he would be 18 now. I don't know.

So I tuck my grief into deep thankfulness. I am so thankful . . . thank - FULL! Jesus has given us 5 children, 4 that are growing here. They are all so wonderful. And Jesus has walked with me and filled our life with such blessing and goodness. I know it sounds kind of funny, but I am so grateful especially this year that Jesus did not let that grief suck me into darkness.