It’s subtle and slow moving. If I look for them or at them directly they disappear in the mist, like the Loch Ness monster, gliding smoothly through my consciousness, asking only that I let them be, recognition is the enemy. They sneak through the fog, peeking through with the brilliance of pure sun, if only for an instant. But they are coming steadily, usually without warning and always when I least expect them.

The tears come and go, as always, but the smiles at his mention, the pure joy in his existence surfaces more frequently. For those moments, those fleeting seconds, I imagine I might know what it’s like to have a living child. I know parenting is tough, at times excruciating, but I also know every parent says it is wholly worth the effort. So there must be those moments, and many of them, when the thought of your child fills you with such pure, unadulterated joy that your heart can no longer be contained by your fragile human body. This love, this parenthood, is bigger than flesh and bone.

And this is what overwhelms me at the most random moments, spurred forth by the simplest memories and most unexpected dreams. His little brother, placing a Joel ornament on our tree;  recollections of dancing in the NICU to the Heatmiser song; his little sister, blowing out the candles on his birthday cake – for a flash there is no sorrow in my heart and no prick in my eye, just a grin and a swell in my heart at the thought of my son. My beautiful, beautiful firstborn son.

I pray this continues, and for every broken hearted sobbing moment, there are a million grins, smiles and knowing winks in our family. Not that we ever take his death lightly, but that we rejoice in his life, both earthly and eternal.