Time

Have you ever seen a cuter kid in your entire life?

love and time

those are the only two things in all the world and all of life 

that cannot be bought, but only spent.

Today was a really hard day.  There's no way of knowing which days are going to be hard and which days are going to be REALLY hard, and nothing seems to necessarily set off a really hard day.  They just come.  And they hurt.  And they are hard.  And I cry, a lot.

Today I've been dwelling a lot on the concept of "time".  Why oh why were we not given more time with this precious angel.  Why?  And these are the day that I honestly cannot cognitively comprehend that he is gone.  I just want a little more time.  And yet, really if I were given more time would this be any easier?  I think not.  I would only want more time.  And sometimes I wonder if really we were actually given more time and we don't even know it.  What if he could have been taken from us at 3 months, and we bargained for 2 years.  Lucky us.

After Lincoln got his feeding tube put in I prayed that time would speed up.  I remember thinking, "please let this time go by quickly, please help Lincoln to learn to eat so that we can put this behind us."  I read a post that I wrote when he was 2 months old and I said, 'well, the past two months have definitely not gone by quickly, but we sure do love this boy!'  And those are the moments I must remember.  That really, maybe time did slow down so that I could cherish every moment I had with him.

And then when we discovered that Lincoln had developmental delays I wanted time to stop.  He needed time to catch up, to reach his developmental milestones.  I needed more time to figure out how to best help him, research what therapies he needed most, and have the time to take him to all the therapies that he did need.  And many days I would fall to my knees and my only prayer to God was, "Please help me.  I'm drowning and I need time to slow down, just for a little bit.  Help me find the time in my day to do all that is being asked of me right now"  Little did I know what I was praying for.  I wasn't only praying for time to slow so that I could catch up on my house work, drive Lincoln to a million therapy appointments and schedule zillions of doctor appointments; I was praying for time to slow so that I could spend what little time I had left with my precious sweet boy.  And although it sometimes seemed that Lincoln had been a part of our lives and a part of our family forever, as it was difficult to remember what life was like without him in it, it now seems like a fleeting moment in time.  Too short.  Not enough time.  Not enough kisses, hugs and snuggles.  

Please give me one more day.  Give me one more hour.  Turn back time!

On the days that I worked and I was away from Lincoln for 8 hours straight I would come home and snuggle him and whisper in his ear, " Oh sweet boy, what would I do without you in my life?"  I honestly said that to him most every day I was away from him for a long period of time.  I missed him and ached for him so badly.  And on days like today, I now wonder the exact same thing.  What on earth will I do without my son in my life?

I came across a blog the other day of a sweet little boy named Caleb, who passed away exactly 1 month before Lincoln: winkfromheaven and though their situations were very different, his family was given 7 years more time with him then they thought.  And yet, as I read the tender words of his mother on that blog, I realized that more time wouldn't make any of this any easier.  

And so on these hard hard days I pray for strength, peace, comfort and especially to feel of his presence and watchful eye over us throughout our lives.  And there's a tiny part of me that prays for time to speed up and pass by quickly.