Today is your birthday, my sweet son. 6 years. We are going to celebrate you by having a picnic lunch and play at a secluded park with favorite friends. Your brother picked out a carton of edible flowers at the farmers market, so I’m going to make a pretty salad and pick up pizza. I liked this article from Mary Chapman on how they celebrate their daughter in heaven’s birthday.
They are at a point where they need fun family time and celebration when they celebrate their daughter’s birthday and I’m feeling like that too. Last year, we went to the zoo with these same dear friends we will see today. They talk about you, so I like to celebrate you with them. Their kids are your little brother’s favorite friends, so he will have a blast. There are many far away that remember your birthday too and send me sweet messages.
When I told your brother we were going to have a birthday party of sorts for you, he got very excited. He said, “Is Luke going to come down for it?!” That brought tears and laughter. He loves you and mentions you to strangers when they ask if he has siblings, which sometimes catches me off guard and makes me awkward. But I’m grateful he talks about you.
He also asked if we could send you a cake like we send balloons. “Can’t we just tie a cake to a bunch of balloons and send it up to him, mom?” He thought the balloons actually make it to you in heaven. What a sweet thought.
I love your sweet brother. He brings boundless joy to my life. You do too, my sweet son. I know that you are in the best place, our true home, surrounded by love and unimaginable beauty. I look forward to joining you there when my race is run. Sometimes I long for the race to be done sooner so I can be with you and be done with the hard things in this broken world. But in the meantime, I am helped to “run with endurance the race that is set before me” (Hebrews 12:1) by knowing that part of my reward is you. I cherish the thought of seeing your handsome face and learning all about you, my son. I can’t wait.
Here is a song I choose to remember you with this year, out of many that remind me of you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAg2Sg43Hfc&feature=share
As I have have written about before and just as Steven Curtis Chapman says, you being there has inspired me to learn about and long for heaven in a totally new way. “God I know, it’s all of this and so much more. But God, you know, this is what I’m longing for, heaven in the face of my little boy.”
I love you. “ He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”–Revelations 21:4
