In Baby Words

Just about a week after Grant died, I took the boys back to our previous home. The home we had just moved from 6 months earlier. We had the funeral near there.  We were back in our old house. As I’ve looked back, I found something I wrote about that first week.

 In that house, we had a sleep room.  Two sets of bunk beds and a play pen for Jayce made up our sleeping arrangements.  A 7 bedroom house and we all slept together.  For about 6 months after Grant died, I couldn’t bear to be away from the boys at night. 

I slept with them every night, or at least fell asleep with them. If I woke up, which was many nights back then, sometimes I’d go to my room for some alone space.  At the time my youngest was 2 years old.  He was just barely verbal in a way that he was making small sentences. 

He made sense now and had a robust vocabulary for a baby. Here is what I wrote, all those years ago: 

The boys and I have been sleeping in the sleep room together. I haven’t wanted to be apart from them. Hearing their breathing at night brings me so much comfort. When I wake, there is pain in my body. The pain of loss. I never knew it would be so physical.

Last night when I was preparing the room for lights out, the older boys were jumping around and making plenty of noise doing their best to resist sleep time. Jayce was lying in his bed, drinking his bottle. He took it half way out of his mouth and said, “Daddy… 

(and mumbled something I couldn’t understand) I felt he wanted to share something important and moved closer to him and asked very gently for him to repeat what he said. He said, “Daddy fall.”

The three older boys went dead quiet all of a sudden. Then Jayce continued… “Jesus fall.” I kept listening, with the distinct impression to not say a word to him and just let him talk. Then…

“Jesus saved Daddy.”

Then…

“Awwwww poor Daddy.”

I felt amazement. Just commenting enough to validate what he said w/out distracting him, to see if there was anything else.  There wasn’t.  He went back to being a baby, put his bottle in his mouth and looked around as if he hadn’t said anything.  

The older boys went back to noise and jumped around. It’s as if there was a pocket of time cut out for just a moment to get the message through.  Later as I pondered on what Jayce said, I was given the impression, Jayce saw the process of Grant’s death.

He saw Grant fall, then he saw Jesus rush down with him (interpreted by a 2 yr old as falling) and lift him up from the earth, saving Grant from his fall.  Then Jayce put it back in the context of this mortal life and felt compassion for Daddy’s fall, “Awww poor Daddy”.

As I pondered this, I got to see too, what Jayce saw.  It was beautiful.  There was a space of falling. That space was then filled with light and Grant. Who he is, never hit the ground, but was taken up with an escort of light, representing Jesus. 

Before his body even touched the earth in that violent and dramatic meeting of the earth. That impact which did indeed injure the body he’d already left and rendered it unusable.  Jayce knew daddy wasn’t coming home and he cried when I told him that. 

As far as the details, I hadn’t shared those.  How did he know?  Why did he see?  What a miracle that he was just old enough to be verbal about it.  I’m so grateful for these experiences. My 2 yr old son bore a sweet testimony that Jesus saves and saved his daddy.

I never talked to him about any of those things. Not once. He told me Jesus saved his dad and I believe him.  I believe Jesus is real, lives, saves and heals.  His healing is real and the only source from which the balm of relief comes.

From the hurt and pain of this loss and so many others with it, Jesus is the balm.  I’m so thankful that my barely verbal 2 year old child shared this truth with me at a time so tender, yet he left with us a lesson that will last through my entire lifetime.