Thanksgiving

I am thankful every year—every day, really—that James is with us. We just don’t know how long he will be with us, so every day that he is is a good day. For a long time, Stacy and I were pretty sure that it was going to be pneumonia that took him away from us. Now, we’re not so sure. This kid has battled pneumonia more times than I can count, and he’s fought it off like a warrior every single time.

Let’s use this last bout of pneumonia as an example. He was admitted to the hospital last Sunday after we took him to the ER with respiratory issues and an x-ray showed pneumonia in his left lung. He came home from the hospital on Wednesday evening…just four days later. So, this year I am extra thankful that James is still with us. I am also thankful that my family was home for Thanksgiving.

We normally spend Thanksgiving with Stacy’s side of the family, but because James had just gotten out of the hospital, we decided to stay home. That meant that we had to cook for ourselves. What to make? There obviously wasn’t enough time to thaw a turkey. I grilled up some twice baked potatoes and a ham steak while Stacy made biscuits and her awesome corn casserole. It was a nice little Thanksgiving dinner for two.

Poor James had to settle for his usual formula. I often wonder if he can process smells. The smell of Stacy’s corn casserole right out of the oven is enough to make my mouth water. I guess if you’ve never tasted something then you can’t associate a smell with it.

Memories of Jackson

Stacy was rearranging some things in James’ room a couple of weeks ago and came across Jackson’s memory box. It was actually kind of weird. We don’t know if some sort of spirit that made her decide to move stuff around in James’ room that day or what, but it happened just 4 days prior to the tenth anniversary of Jackson’s passing. His “angelversary” as Stacy says. Here is a glimpse into his memory box.

Stacy had posted all of those pictures on her Facebook page on November 13th, the day she found the memory box. Three days later, these were delivered:

They were from a dog walking client of Stacy’s who recently moved out of the area. Thank you, Meredith, for brightening our day.

We were planning on lighting a candle and saying a prayer for him on Saturday the 17th, the anniversary of his passing, but with James having some respiratory issues on the 16th, we decided to do it the night of the 16th instead. Just in case James got to the point that we needed to rush to the hospital. We know that Jackson is up there looking over us and probably knows everything that is going on down here, but we just didn’t want him to think we forgot about him.

I’ll admit that I don’t think about him all the time anymore because most of my thoughts are about James. But I will always wonder what our lives would have been like had he not had Trisomy 18 and if he had been a healthy baby boy. This may sound weird, but then I wonder if that would mean that James would never exist. Or would James’ spirit be transferred into another baby boy’s body for another family to raise? Strange thought, huh?