The Big Week

This week started out big.  Shannon had games on the weekend and then left Tuesday morning for a week long tour of Oregon.  School started for Zach. Community Picnic (of which I was responsible).  Lots of work to get done on the Man Cave 2.0 (as Jessica has dubbed it).   The recent DOJ announcement.  On top of all of this,  its September and tax returns are starting to come due.

I started  the week with an anxiousness and uneasiness that I couldn't quite understand.  I pulled up Groove Shark one morning at work in an effort relax.  I wanted to listen to some Dave Matthews.  After finding the song that had been in my head all morning,  I then stumbled upon this song.  Suddenly I found myself sobbing like a little girl on her first day of Kindergarten (Zach didn't sob on his first day, but the girl next to him did).

"The first time I saw you was like a punch right through my chest" 

Tuesday was the 3rd anniversary of Nathan's birth.  After spending three months mentally preparing ourselves for the challenges our family and Nathan would face once he was born, the sudden development of his early delivery and the corresponding complications caught me by surprise.  The first time I saw him,  I realized the battles he had fought just to make it to this point.

"I will forever, cause you forever be my one true broken heart, pieces inside of me,
and you forever be my baby"

I don't know why after three years, Nathan's memory, still haunts me so.  I remember that morning in the Hospital and the intensity and the pureness of the emotions.  I remember holding him and being sad for all the things he would never get to do.  I also remember the calm stillness in that room and knowing, for that moment, the importance of forever.

"You will rest your head,  your strength wants saving
and when you wake, you will fly away holding tight to the legs of all your angels"

I know that had Nathan lived his life would have been challenging.  I know it was mercy that allowed his suffering to end early.

"Goodbye my love, into your blue blue eyes in your blue blue world
You and me forever"

I do want to apologize for approaching this subject in a forum where I usually try to share our experiences in a comical and light hearted way.  But I did want to share this part of my testimony because I think it may be what I learned from our experience with Nathan.  Last week I had a discussion in my Sunday school class about the importance of life.  Sometimes I think in our narrow view of life we place to great of importance on the few moments we have here on earth.  We forget in the longer view of eternity that there are greater experiences available to us.  That life while precious and unique and needs to be experienced to the fullest extent possible, is not all there is for us.  We shouldn't get so caught up with life,  that we forget about Heavenly Father.

I will stop now with this scripture and attempt to sob no more.
  
Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what isyour life? It is even a ^avapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.  James 4:14