At this time seven months ago, we were wrapped in the final, sacred hours with our son. Completing tasks for him one last time. Doing my motherly duties once more for him before handing him back to his Heavenly Father. Bathing him. Combing his hair. Dressing him in fresh, new clothes. Moments that in life seem mundane and never ending, but at the edge of death they were hallowed and spiritual.

Somehow we’re here. Seven months without him. Without his smile. His hugs. His noise, movement, mess, enthusiasm, and bad ideas. I would never have thought I could survive seven months without one of my children. I still wonder often how I am. If I am.

So much of our life looks and acts normal. We still have movie nights and play Catan too late into the evening. We drag kids to ball practices and home from track meets. We go on dates and laugh with friends. I do laundry and sweep the floors.

So much isn’t normal though. I open emails with mock-ups of a headstone with my son’s name on it. I write thank you notes with words like “that’s a beautiful way to honor Deacon’s memory”. I go out of my way to drive away from the children’s hospital when going right by it would get me to my destination sooner. I fight back panic attacks when the guy at Best Buy goes on and on about the O2 monitor on the new Apple Watch. I crawl into bed with my sleeping children and watch their chest rise and fall and listen to their whisper-quiet breathing trying to figure out why I couldn’t keep Deacon breathing. And if I stop watching them, will they stop too?

Maybe normal from the outside. But not normal really. Our life has been wadded up like a piece of paper. And while we’re choosing the path towards healing….fighting for color and life…and slowly unfolding that piece of paper back out, I know it will never be smooth again. The wrinkles of grief and loss will always be there, no matter how flat we get that paper.

In the midst of it all, there is peace I could not explain, that I neither deserve nor understand. A couple weeks ago was Good Friday. It was hard but also such a gift to my hurting heart. A marking in time that I could intimately relate to. Death of a son. Suffering. Sorrow. Grief. Pain. Pleading for another way — any other way.

But then comes Easter Sunday. Rebirth. Beautiful restoration. Hope. A reminder that our pain and suffering were taken so that we can and will see Deacon again. In truth, Deacon is the one living. And I’m white-knuckle-clinging to the hope that I’ll being alive one day too.

So while some days have normal moments of errands and paying bills, other days I dig my fingers into the soft earth above where my precious son is buried and weep until there is nothing left in me. Apologizing to him over and over that I didn’t do more. That I couldn’t save him. That I didn’t know. I just didn’t know.

Either way, time keeps moving. We keep loving. Because I can’t think of a better way to honor Deacon than to feel this agony, acknowledge our wound, and rise in our pain…rather than be buried by it.

I miss you, Deacon. Ache for you. I’m trying. To be the things I loved most in you. I want to make you proud. I want to be the kind of mom who rises. You’re in our every moment. I feel you.

This sorrow is a small price to pay to be your mother.