Saying Goodbye, and Letting Go....

Today marks the sixth anniversary of my only child's death.  Normally I would be very sad and crying, but after
careful thought, I have decided instead to celebrate.  To celebrate the time that I had with him.  I had him on a Sunday night after many long hours of labor. Totally a labor of love.  I raised him by myself for the most part.
He and I were so close!  i loved that child like no other.  He was my life for 30 years.  The night the Arkansas State Trooper came knocking at my door, I felt like my life had ended.  The AST came to tell me that my baby boy had died in a terrible car accident.  He said that he didn't suffer at all, and for that I am grateful!  The next morning I had the most heart breaking task ahead of me, to tell his little boy that he would never come home again. To tell him that the Daddy he loved would never play with him again. To break his little boy's heart.  That was a morning everything changed.
The next morning I had to make the long journey to the funeral home to take my son's clothes, the clothes that he would wear for the rest of time.  After careful thought, I had decided to go and buy the very same set of clothing that he had on when he left our house the day before. Those clothes were the clothes that he had chosen himself, clothes that he liked, clothes that he would forever be comfortable in.  When I got to the funeral home, I asked to see my son one last time, to kiss him one last time, to say I love you one last time, to say good-bye one last time, but that was not to be.  I never got to kiss him good-bye.  But they were right not to let me, because that would be a sight forever frozen on my brain.  Instead the last visual I have of him was a smile on his face, saying I love you Momma as he walked out the door for the last time.
Instead of being sad, I am celebrating, I am celebrating because he left our home, to go to his home, his home with the Lord.  And for that, I thank God, because God called him home to be with him, as I know that someday, God will also call me home to be with my son again. Until then, I will celebrate the life and the time I had with my son.

"If I could reach up, to the sky, and grab a star for ever time you made me smile,  I would hold the entire night sky in the palm of my hand!"            
                             

                                                     Levi Alan Simmons
                                              Feb 15, 1981-March 3, 2011