In Your Grandchildren’s Smiles, You Live On!

August 12 is a rough day for me, but it is better now than seventeen years ago when my youngest child, my Black Knight, died after a painful struggle that only he could describe after a heart transplant. He stopped taking his medication. His choice, but I still wish I could have been at home and able to talk with him. Yet, I have grown enough in my knowledge of God to realize that I didn’t have the right to bully him into remaining on earth for me.

Today, I am so grateful for thirty years, and I will take the time not so much to mourn him as to celebrate his wonderful life. I will let my memories bring him into the room and laugh again at his escapades. Once on Valentine’s Day when he was about 16 years old, he stayed out after his curfew. I was frantic when he got home at 2 in the morning, with school the next day. I didn’t know if I should hit or hug him as he walked through the front door. Unfortunately, I chose the first option, and he pulled his hands into fists and looked like he would hit me back. I told him, “If you touch me, one of us is going to jail, and one of us is going to Hell, and I don’t plan on dying tonight!”

He was shocked because I didn’t use profanity or make threats. He ran to his room. He returned and tore up the card he had bought me right in my face. We didn’t speak for days. But eventually, our relationship returned to some semblance of normal for us. But I never hit him or my other kids again because I felt such pain afterward. I knew there had to be a better way to discipline than creating an even more dangerous situation.

I visited him every day in the hospital after the heart transplant. He talked about that moment one day, and we laughed at my threat. I believe he planned to use that threat with his children someday! Laughing about it was cathartic for us both. I am so glad he could marry and be a father because although his father was never in his life, he was the best father to his daughters. Today, he has two beautiful grandchildren whom he would have adored. Keep resting, my darling son. You live on in my memories and the love of your daughters and grandchildren.

I wish comfort, peace, and courage today to all parents mourning the loss of a child. We survive, but we never stop remembering, grateful to still be able to look back and rejoice at having had the privilege and honor of being a parent to a wondrous child.