Jeffrey Michael 12-30-1988 * +

"I'll lend you for a while a child of mine," He said.
"For you to love the while he lives and mourn for when he's dead.
.
It may be six or seven years, or twenty-two or three,
But will you, till I call him back, take care of him for me?
.
He'll bring his charms to gladden you, and should his stay be brief,
You'll have his lovely memories as solace for your grief."
.
"I cannot promise he will stay; since all from earth return,
But there are lessons taught down there I want this child to learn.
.
I've looked the wide world over in My search for teachers true
And from the throngs that crowd life's lanes I have chosen you.
.
Now will you give him all your love, not think the labor vain,
Nor hate Me when I come to call to take him back again?"
.
"I fancied that I heard them say, "Dear Lord, Thy will be done!
For all the joy Thy child shall bring, the risk of grief we run.
.
We'll shelter him with tenderness, we'll love him while we may,
And for the happiness we've known, forever grateful stay;
.
But should the angels call for him much sooner than we've planned,
We'll brave the bitter grief that comes and try to understand!"

God's Poem by Edgar Guest.

This poem always makes me cry. It means so much to me.

20 years ago this evening - I was pregnant with our last baby (at least the last one we knew about - because of our history, we were not going to have any other biological children).

Jeffrey (although we thought he was Jessica until he entered the world) - had given us quite a scare for the past 3 months. He was suffering from a congenital kidney problem that had caused him to no longer have amniotic fluid.

Without the fluid, his lungs were in jeopardy of not developing completely or correctly. We did everything the doctors instructed us to do -- literally putting our life on hold to give him any possible chance to survive.

20 years ago tonight, we did not know that December 30, 1988 we would meet our precious Jeffrey & within 2 hours say good bye to him as well.

Everything that we had done and tried, did not save him. His lungs did not develop & even with multiple specialists working on him - he did not survive.

Dear Jeffrey - I think of you often. I know that if you had stayed on this earth - you would have had a long difficult struggle to live. I know that if you had survived the lung problems - you were facing dialysis & kidney transplants (if you even qualified for that).

But that doesn't make it easier to not have you - my brain knows that you are better off. My heart knows that I am not. It's hard. And the last sentence of the above poem is always what gets me....."And try to understand".

I don't understand.