dear jackson

Dear Jackson,

Today is Friday, September 4, 2009...although that may mean nothing to you now or even when you read this, it means so much to me. One week ago today we were being settled into a hospital room...your hospital room. Bless your heart, you were so sick. From Lord only knows where you contracted a virus that gave you croup. Early last thursday morning you started coughing, gasping for air and very understandedly getting upset. We took you to the dr where they told us to just give you lots of fluids and let you breathe in air from the freezer if you started struggling to breathe again...obviously they've never tried to let a toddler sit in front of the freezer. In the middle of the night thursday night/friday morning you woke up gasping for breath. It was so scary. I wanted to help you, tried for over 2 hours to help you but there wasn't anything I could do to make it better. We tried the freezer, sat in the steamy shower, went for a car ride, sat outside - nothing helped. We got to the emergency room at 430 am and they took you back immediately. You got several back to back breathing treatments and some pretty strong steroids that after 5 hours finally started to provide some relief. The nurses and doctors at Le Bonheur were so good to you...so sweet and gentle. You were such a big boy through all of it. Do you have any idea how proud I am of you? How incredibly brave you are?

For the past week I'm pretty sure I have never prayed so much in my whole life...sometimes I didn't even have words to pray. It may sound crazy but it's a great place to be. To finally realize just how little you are, how much you desperately need God. Always. Not just in troubled and sick times. We always need God just as much...we just aren't always as aware of it. There were so many times when I thought I was about to lose you. It is the most scared I've ever been in my whole life. I can honestly say that I just don't know what I'd do without you. You have and continue to bring so much joy to my and your dad's life. For some reason, some reason I'll never know, God chose to heal you, to carry us all through this ordeal. You'll learn all too soon that sometimes God doesn't heal us on this earth. Sometimes he takes us, big and small, to heaven where we can be eternally healed. We don't understand things like that, not fully anyway. No matter how or why we have been praising God ever since we got home from the hospital and continue to do so today. I'm glad to be sitting here this friday.

You were so amazingly precious this week. Every time you didn't feel good you would ask to sit in the chair and want me to sing Jesus loves me to you...all four verses. When I would finish you would just quietly say more. It would calm you, comfort you in a way that only the name of Jesus can.

What a difference a week makes though. Today we went to Kroger together and then went and ate lunch with Dad. You're so joyful and strong, as if nothing ever happened. Thank you for always teaching me something about myself that I didnt know before. What a blessing God has given me in you.

I love you bear.

Love, Mom