Moved to Heaven

In my last post, I blogged about Jackson’s birthday party with the family. It was an early celebration because family was visiting from out of town. I said in the post that when Jackson turns 2 it was going to be a whole other post. I already had in my mind that I was going to talk about how grateful we were to have him and what a true celebration turning two was for, not only him, but our entire family. With all that he had been through in his first two months of life, we had made it to this point and we were grateful. Well, as only God can, he threw me for a complete loop and horrifically, I’m not talking about his birthday celebration today.  On Saturday, April 20, 2013, one day shy of his second birthday, Jackson Gary Reese received his wings and became an angel. 

That day is the absolute worst day of my life and will haunt me forever. I continue to replay the day in my mind over and over and over again. Words can not even begin to describe the pain, as a mom, that I feel right now. It’s unimaginable grief, heartache and sorrow. I live with a pit in my stomach and a hole in my heart twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. In a single moment, life as we knew it changed forever. And we will never get it back.

Jackson was, and is, one of the greatest blessings in our life. He was our miracle baby. After two miscarriages, we found out I was pregnant with Jackson. The road continued to be a rough one though as we learned halfway through the pregnancy about Jackson’s heart defect, which scared us immensely. We were very confident in the doctors in the Herma Heart Center at Children’s Hospital and knew they were the best of the best, but you still worry. Until your baby is out of your belly and you can see and touch and feel him, you worry. That’s just what mother’s do. 

Jackson was born on Friday, April 21, 2011 and at five days old he underwent open heart surgery that lasted an agonizing 13 hours. It didn’t go as smooth as planned. There were a couple of setbacks but in the end the surgery was a success. Jackson was in the Cardiac ICU for seven weeks. Again, we dealt with more setbacks and scares during his time at the hospital, but he finally got to a point that the doctors felt it was safe to take him home. With the specific scares we had in the hospital, we lived on edge for the first year. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed every moment with my little guy and watching him grow, but we had to be aware that something could possibly happen, plus there were many medications to give morning and night. Thankfully, we made it through the first year and Jackson was weaned off of all of his medications. It felt like a triumph. A victory for Jackson and Eric and I. We had gotten over the worst of the worst. 

As Jackson continued to grow and show us what a healthy boy he was, life continued to get a little easier. The anxiety for me started to dissipate slowly. And actually for the last couple of months, life was great.  I felt so blessed and so lucky that I could be at home with the kids and truly enjoy them. I loved being a mom to my kids. I loved walking into school with Kate on one side and Jackson on the other. I thought about it all the time and I thanked God and Eric for giving me the opportunity. And I soaked it in. Especially the last couple of months. After all of the scary events of the world like Newtown and Boston, I was making a very concerted effort to just be with the kids. To give them nonstop kisses and hugs. To play with them when they asked. To just sit and snuggle with them. I didn’t care about the house. It was a mess. The last couple of months, I was putting the kids above all else. And in hindsight, I am forever grateful I did. The memories I have with Jackson are priceless. He loved being tickled and I loved tickling him. We’d spend an hour in the living room floor just rolling around and tickling and laughing. We’d spend a lot of time just sitting on the couch with binkies and blankets snuggling with each other and watching Caillou. Or just sitting in his rocking chair upstairs reading books. He loved to read books. I wouldn’t trade these moments for anything (except if I could have him back here with me. I’d give anything for that). 

And Jackson’s personality was really starting to shine through too. He was a charismatic little guy that brightened up any room he walked into. Everyone loved him. He was sociable and waved to everyone he saw. He loved giving kisses and hugs. He was a momma’s boy through and through, but boy did he love his big sister Kate. He loved puppy dogs, birds and trucks. Binkies, blankets and bottles. He was the happiest kid you ever would have met.

Then, in a moment on April 20, my perfect world shattered to pieces. I’ve had a lot of people asking what happened that day. Was it something to do with his heart? I think everyone assumes it was. We don’t have definitive answers yet, and who knows if we ever will. When we do, I promise we will share them. But the day Jackson left us to be with Jesus, he just wasn’t feeling great. He had a fever but nothing that worried us. Before he took a second nap that day, he was happy and smiling. You never would have known anything serious was going on in his little body. But he told us he was ready for a nap, so after kisses for Wesley, Daddy and Momma, I rocked him for a moment. He pointed to his crib telling me he was ready for me to put him down, so I did. One last kiss, hug and “bye bye”. When Jackson closed his eyes for that afternoon nap, he peacefully moved to heaven.

I’ve struggled the last three weeks with so many things…guilt, grief and the obvious “why” and “why me”. I know I will never have the answers that I so desperately crave for. But I do believe that God had a plan. I do believe there is a great reason for all of this pain I am dealing with. I know for some people it’s hard to believe that God would even dare do something like this to a mother. Losing a child is the absolute worst thing that could ever happen to someone. But I WANT and HAVE to believe He did because if I didn’t then my entire belief system would be crushed. If I didn’t believe that God had a great plan, then I wouldn’t be able to believe that my sweet boy is rocking in Jesus’ lap right now singing “Jesus Loves Me”. And I HAVE to believe that because it is the ONLY thing that gives me any comfort since Jackson isn’t sitting with me now. It’s the ONLY thing that gives me comfort because I know I will see him again. It’s just SO hard to face that reality because I want to see him NOW, and I can’t. I have to wait until God is finished with me here on earth. And when that day comes I’m not going to care what God’s reason was. I’m just going to run so fast to my little buddy and give him the biggest hug he’s ever had, then sit on a cloud and snuggle with him and never let him go.

I can’t end this blog post without thanking all of our family, friends and strangers who have prayed, written notes, sent gifts, cooked food, cried with us, sat with us, called us, emailed us, facebooked us, prayed for us, prayed with us, stood by us and just loved us. We feel, see, read it all, and it is helping us to get through this horrific nightmare we are living. The outpouring of love and support is beyond humbling and we are forever grateful. Please continue to pray for not only Kate, Eric and myself but all of our family members.  We didn’t just lose our son on April 20, we all lost the most amazing brother, grandson, nephew and friend.