Never-ending Grief

When I’m thinking “boy it’s been awhile since I really broke down about Gabie, I must be making progress”. It hits from no where.

On Monday the kids put on the Baby Einstein movie pictured below for my sweet nephew Caleb and I thought about it for a brief second, I waited for the emotions to well up and they didn’t. I was just happy to see a baby enjoying Gabie’s Birthday gift.

Tonight when Isaac brought the little John Deere tractor out to play with and said “this was Gabies”. I didn’t expect to fall a part and yet I found myself retreating to my closet to hold Gabie’s blanket and sit in the closet in the dark and cry.

When I say that tractor I had the most vivid memory of this picture below. It was Gabe’s 1st Birthday of many as far as we knew and we were so excited for him. He received lots of fun little gifts. The Tractor was from Grandma & Grandpa Egley. He had already eaten his chocolate cake and I had bathed him to get him all sparkly clean again. You see the red on his knee’s and cheeks, they were always just a little rough from dry skin (eczema I think) although you can’t see it his little elbows and ankles were rough too. So I always spent a little extra time covering him in Baby Aveeno. Then I brought him out to play. Clean and beautiful as every with his curly wet uncombed hair. He pushed that tractor around a lot that night and played with it frequently for the next 5 months.

Most of the other toy’s pictured here are in his box so they aren’t seen unless I get them out but this tractor Isaac loved too and so I knew Gabie would want Isaac to have it and even still now Isaac likes to play with it and he knows it was Gabie’s.

Crazy the things that get me going. I’ve been a bit on the emotional side all week for one reason or another but not until tonight did it really hit me that I’ve been missing my sweet boy all week long.  Or maybe he’s been close to me all week long so I’ve felt his presence more than normal which always brings me to an emotional place.

I’ve truly felt this way since church on Sunday (Easter Sunday). Every song, every lesson, every talk brought me to tears knowing how much the atonement means to me, how much my Savior’s sacrifice means to me. I’m beyond thankful for that blessing I’ve been given, especially when I miss my sweet boy so much my heart is aching and breaking for him.