Just a Bad Dream...

As I go about my days sometimes, I get a strange Deja Vu feeling, but in reverse or something.  Like I stop and have to remember what I'm doing, where I am, where my son is.  Almost feeling panicked like I lost him, or my mind.  It'll happen at random times and places, I feel almost dizzy.  Confused or numb, like Deja Vu is the best way I can describe it.  I feel almost out of place in my new life without Drew.  Like my heart finally gets stronger than my mind and is saying, wait a minute!  What happened to Drew?  How can he be just gone??  He was just here, where is he?!  It'll happen at somewhat predictable times too, like when I look in his room with no crib anymore, or at the laundry piles with no little boy clothes.  Sometimes as I push a cart in Walmart without him in the basket, or at the library when its just Molly and I walking in.  This week it happened at the park, the first time we've been to this particular one since he died.  It's like my heart's last protests.  It still sometimes can't believe what happened to us. 

I can get my bearings, my mind takes back over and tells my heart all that we know is true.  Yes, Drew is gone.  And it was so sad.  But he is gone.  And we can't do anything to change it.  God had a purpose, a plan, for him and now he's back with God.  God took care of us every step of the way last year, and he'll do it again.  There must be a reason.  It'll make sense in the end.  Drew's better off.  We will be okay.  Breath....and reluctantly, my heart shrinks back until the next time something triggers it to speak out again.

So many have told me they think it probably just feels like a bad dream that I just wish I could wake up from.  And maybe that's what my heart is trying to do, wake up from this bad dream.  I feel like I've read this before in a grief  book, it's one of the stages--disconnecting with reality, or confusion or something.  And I get it now.  Wednesday it'll be three months since I last kissed his forehead, and held his hand.  Not quite 13 weeks since I've heard his sweet, "love you!" and saw his smile.  I think I've been doing so "well" that I forget how fresh this really still is.  No wonder there are moments that I am still in disbelief.

After several times of this feeling, it caused me to really think about this life.  How the Bible tells us that things on this earth are just a "copy,  a shadow" of heavenly things (Hebrews 8:5).  And how we will be much more aware of ourselves and surroundings in Heaven-- "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).  That in Heaven, we will finally be home, where our true citizenship is (Philippians 3:20), and where we will be absent from the body, but at home with the Lord (2nd Corinthians 5:8).  Taking all these things into consideration, is it too much of a stretch to think maybe we really will feel like we are waking up from a bad dream once we are in Heaven?  That this life really is fleeting, like James tells us, "like a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away" and we will wake up in a very real way to our eternal life?  Maybe in that perspective, this reality without the son that I once had really IS like a bad dream that someday we will wake up from, shake off, and be glad it's over.

Now hopefully I don't sound crazy.  I think I do have a pretty good grasp on reality.  And I understand that this world, whether it is like a dream or not compared to eternity, has very real consequences.  Jesus told us over and over again that what we believe and the choices we make here on earth matter and will determine our eternity.  It will decide whether when we "wake up" after this life we will regard it as a bad dream, something that after 10,000 years we can look back at and vaguely remember how bad it was.  Or whether we remember this life as actually having been a good dream after all, compared to what we face for eternity, and wish we had made different decisions.

I hope that people reading this know which way they will view this life looking back.  And maybe it's now part of why I'm still here and Drew's not, to spread the word that you can know if you aren't sure, and the better scenario is offered to you, free of charge!  That this life is terrible, and isn't fair.  That yes, children suffer and die from cancer before they even turn 3, but it will all be okay in the end.  It will make sense, and we can wake up from this bad dream to a better reality.  But in the mean time it is possible to enjoy the good things about this place, because of the hope we have for the future.

I hope Drewy woke up that afternoon in Heaven, and was filled with a feeling of being Home.   That he was comforted to know it was over, and that he could rest and play and find his relatives, and wasn't going to hurt or be sick, or scared anymore.  I'd ask him sometimes when I could tell he was about to get sick, "are you going to get sick??" running towards him with a bowl.  "I hope not!" he answered once, about 30 seconds before it all came back up.  Never again will he have to "hope" that he will feel better.  And just the thought of that brings me comfort, during these moments when I feel so lost without him.





It was about a year ago that we went through a really tough week.  I said at the time it was one of the worst weeks of my life, and I still think it is in the top 3 behind only when we found out the cancer was back, and our last week with Drew.  We were in the hospital, waiting for his counts to come up to collect stem cells for the transplants.  He was having bone pain from the shots we had to give him each night to stimulate his bone marrow to recover.  His central line was out due to a previous line infection, so each blood draw at 4:30AM had to be done the old fashioned way, leaving his veins bruised.  They had already placed the catheter in his neck from which they'd filter his stem cells out of his blood when it was ready, making him not able to bend his neck to that side.  And to top it off, he had an IV blow a vein and fill his arm with fluid to the point where his hand was blue and his skin on his forearm was blistering.  It was a rough week.  Here he is from that week, looking like he's been through a war.

But we made it to the collection where they hoping to get 8 million stem cells, and our Drewy gave them 19 million.  It gives me goosebumps even now to think of the relief and the joy that report was after the week we had.  I picture that when I think of how we'll end this life.  Our souls scared, bandaged, bruised and weak, but we'll make it.  I hope to have a similar experience of relief and joy at my final report.  It's that vision that keeps me working hard through this bad dream of a life, so that I can wake up and find myself in a much better place, where I am truly at Home with the Lord and with my Drew again.  But until then I'll look at these pictures of how much Drew endured, and know that I can endure too.  He made me so proud that week, and continues to motivate me to finish this life strong. 

Here Drew is the very next day after he got home from that dreadful week in the hospital.  Choosing Joy.  Bless his heart. May he motivate you too!