What I wouldn't give...

All it takes is this 40 second video I have to send me down that winding, spiral of emotions. This simply beautiful, amazing video of my sweet baby laughing, almost chuckling in fact. Everytime I watch it, I smile, and then almost instantly that smile turns into tears. 

What I wouldn't give, or trade, or do...

I think of how I spent my time, like I had time. Like time didn't matter, that it was endless. That it was ok if I spent this evening playing an mindless game on my phone or painting my nails with layers of color and intricate details or talking with 'friends' that weren't really friends at all but mere acquaintances and conversation were simply surface level. Because even if I spent one night this way, there would be countless others, years of evenings to cherish, snuggle, and hug. There aren't countless others. That time is gone. I don't have those moments that I thought would be endless.

Just to hold him, or kiss him, or even just smell his hair. What I wouldn't give.

This pain that is in the deepest parts of my heart, it makes me feel like I never experienced pain before. It takes my breathe away, makes my heart race, automatically brings a flood of tears from my eyes. My brain doesn't seem to work, or able to focus on anything other than this pain. Any other previous working senses turn off and all I can feel in this all encompassing sadness and hurt.

The emptiness felt can only be described as a broken cup. I have this awful habit of leaving my earring in my cup holder of my van. When driving separate than my husband, I will stop on the way to work and treat myself to a Dunkin Donuts coffee. Quite a few times, embarrassingly enough, I have placed my coffee into my cup holder, and upon lifting the cup back out of the cup holder realized WHOOPS the coffee is leaking out because my earring punctured a hole! I try to fix the hole by putting tape over it, which didn't work, so I have to face it and pour my coffee from my broken cup into one of my classroom mugs. The emptiness of that cup, being broken and coffeeless is the only way I can describe how alone I feel. How many coffee cups get earrings punctured into them? How many mothers have to bury their child, their perfectly healthy child. At times I feel that my use is that of a broken Styrofoam coffee cup---trash.

Sometimes as I daydream I find myself wondering what can I do, how can I change these events. And then the events of that day begin. My mind plays those vivid memories over and over again, leaving me wondering why and how I could have prevented this.

I have to believe that there is something that has to come out of all of this, something that MUST come out of all of this. I pray for strength and clarity, and blessings and miracles. I pray that God uses this to do his work through me. I pray that he protects my other children and heals their hearts. I pray others don't have to suffer this loss like we have. And I pray for Jayse, that he knows how much I miss and love him, and that he know how much he has changed all of us.