One Year

My precious Austin,

It’s so hard for me to fathom that you have been Home for 1 year. Twelve long months you have been gone from our family and from our home. I still vividly remember the events of that day. Your excited smiles as you got off the bus for the last time, so excited to start your summer of fun. Going to the library to pick out books and sign up for the reading program. Going over to Kierra’s house to play with plans to play there many more times. Excitement for a trip to Legoland in Chicago and a week at Lego camp in August. We found out that day that this is all they were…..just plans. We found out that day that our plans are not God’s plans. As we were getting ready to help dad with a landscape job, God was preparing to take you home. He was putting the final touches on your mansion and readying the saints and angels to welcome you home. At about 5:35 PM on June 1, God used the means of a Honda Insight and your apparent failure to look both ways, to begin walking you Home. I remember thinking that you couldn’t possibly die, because your heart was still beating and you were still breathing. At that time I didn’t realize how very badly your head was hurt. I was preparing myself to spend much of my summer with you in the hospital, helping you to get better.

Bits and pieces of the scenes that followed will forever be etched in my mind. I remember them like they happened yesterday. Being notified by a stranger that my “baby had been hit” and being confused because our “baby” Gracie was right in front of me, and then realizing that it was you that had been hit. Running out to the front yard and asking Todd if you were still alive. Hearing the sirens of the emergency vehicles as they came to try to help you. Trying to call your dad and nearly dropping my phone because my hands were shaking so badly. Answering questions asked by police officers, paramedics and firemen. Hearing the fire chief call to dispatch Aeromed, making me realize just how badly you were hurt. Friends and family showing up out of nowhere. Our pastor arriving to read God’s word and pray with me. Asking to see you in the ambulance and being told I had to get back so the Aeromed chopper could land. Running to meet your dad. Watching Aeromed lift off and head to the hospital, and Uncle Andy taking pictures to show you when you got better. The ride with Mr. Zuverink to the hospital that seemed to take forever. Waiting in the tiny room behind your trauma bay with our family. Not being able to see you and only receiving updates through the hospital social worker. Finally talking to the surgeon who told us they had given you four units of blood and you were still bleeding somewhere. Being told you would be rushed in to surgery to try to find the source of bleeding. Finally getting to see you, and seeing how badly hurt you looked. Touching your hands and talking to you, but not getting any response. Walking with you down to surgery. Sitting in the waiting room surrounded by friends and family as you were in surgery. Being told that your spleen and liver were damaged, but had been repaired. Finding out that you had fluid around your heart, so they were bringing in a cardiac surgeon. Meeting with the cardiac surgeon who was able to repair a hole in the artery across your heart, and felt you would have a good recovery. Feeling relieved and hopeful that they had been able to fix your heart. Meeting with the neurosurgeon, and knowing by my first look at him that things were not good. Hearing that the swelling in your brain was too much and the neurosurgeon “didn’t see how you could survive”. Screaming “no, no, no, no, no” as we realized just what the neurosurgeon was telling us – that you were too hurt to live on this earth anymore. Pastor Eriks coming into the room and reading and praying with us. Going out into the waiting room into the arms of our family and telling them that you would not survive. Your dad being strong and leading everyone in singing “Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow”. Crying and collapsing in your daddy’s arms. Being angry and not wanting to sing because we had just been told you were going to die. Wrestling myself away from your dad to get away from the singing and running down the hallway. Telling grandma that I couldn’t live without you and trying to think of ways to go with you. Sitting in the hallway staring at the floor with Grandma and Aunt Erin for what seemed like forever, until Dad and the surgeon came and told us we could finally go see you. Walking into the room in the PICU and seeing all the people working on you and all the machines you were hooked up to. Touching your hand and talking to you, but not getting a response. The doctor pulling dad aside and telling him that your brain was swelling even more. Getting ushered out of the room so they could do a cat scan on your head. Meeting in the consult room with the doctor, nurses, our parents and our pastor. The doctor telling us that there was nothing they could do, that your brain was hurt too badly and that even with all the lifesaving measures they were giving you, you would eventually die. The doctor encouraging us to make a choice no parent should ever have to make, to keep you alive on machines, or to discontinue all life saving measures and let you go to Jesus. Pastor Eriks talking with us and assuring us that you would be in heaven, that you would see Jesus, that Jesus would welcome you with open arms and that you would no longer be bruised and battered, but would be perfect. Feeling completely defeated at the choice we had to make. Feeling an unmistakable peace when we thought of you healed and perfect in the loving arms of our Father. Not wanting to be with you to watch you take your last breath. Suddenly feeling an unmistakable peace and wanting to be the one to walk you through heaven’s doors and into the arms of our loving savior. Telling the doctor of our decision to let you go Home. Climbing up onto your bed, wrapping my arms around you and feeling your strong heartbeat. Watching the nurse discontinue life support and feeling your heart beat for the very last time. Knowing you had gained the ultimate victory. Pastor Eriks reading scripture and praying with us. Feeling unmistakable peace. Touching your face, kissing your cheeks and holding your hands for the last time. Feeling how cold you were and covering you with the blanket before we had to go. Walking the long corridor with the hospital chaplain. Leaving the hospital in the dead of night, knowing we would never see you alive outside of those doors again. Coming home to your brothers and sister, sleeping and oblivious to how our world had just shattered. Climbing into bed and trying to sleep, to no avail. Waiting for your brothers and sister to wake up. Telling your brothers and sister that you had gone home to heaven to be with Jesus. Watching our faithful Father work in your siblings to give them understanding and peace that we too wanted to find.

The week following your home-going was one of the worst weeks of my life. No parent should have to make the decisions we had to make. When to have your visitation, what kind of casket to lay your body in, what kind of flowers would adorn your casket, and when to have your memorial service. Going to the cemetery and picking out a plot to lay you to rest, picking out a passage and songs for your memorial service, picking out an outfit for your viewing, and thinking of the words that would tell your story for your obituary. Meeting with over 600 fellow friends and family at your visitation, seeing you laying there so still and cold and having to leave you in the care of a funeral home every night. The week following your death was also one of the best weeks of my life. As I look back on that week, a year ago, I remember feeling an unmistakable peace, and the amazing grace of our heavenly Father holding me up when I would have otherwise been curled in a ball on the floor. God used our family and our brothers and sisters in Christ, to physically and spiritually hold us up. They brought us food, watched your siblings, gave us hugs, cleaned our house and pulled our weeds. Most importantly they stormed the gates of heaven and implored the throne of grace on our behalf. They prayed for us and thought of us continually. God used them to walk with us through the most devastating event in our life. We are so thankful that our Father is faithful to his promise to NEVER leave us or forsake us.

Here we are a year later. The pain and hurt still cut deep. We are still struggling to pick up the pieces of our shattered hearts, trying to see the purpose God has for our lives. We know he has a purpose, even though it is so hard to see. And so we press on. We continue running this exhausting race we call life, with the ultimate goal of our reward in heavenly glory. We know the grace of God is real. We have experienced it in a very real way in the past 12 months. This is what we continue to cling to. God’s promise that His grace IS, and will continue to be, sufficient. That He will supply just enough grace to make it through the next minute. Though it is still so incredibly hard, we are learning, one small step at a time, to live without you. I never thought I’d be able to say that. I didn’t want to learn to live without you. It was an incredibly daunting task that was laid before me, and yet, by the grace of God we ARE standing and living today. We still grieve you and we always will. There will always be a gaping hole in our family where you should be, but we find peace in knowing that you are with Christ, that you are no longer hurt and no longer have to struggle against sin, and that you are PERFECT. Your death was not an accident. God was not busy somewhere else when you forgot to look the other way. He was carrying you as you ran across the front yard, as you flew aboard the Aeromed chopper, as you went through emergency surgery and as you laid in the PICU looking so hurt. Then in His PERFECT love for you, He tenderly gathered you, his precious lamb, in His arms and brought you home. We long for that day, when at last, we get to gather you in our arms once again, the day when we too are HOME.

Until we meet again my precious boy,

Mommy