Still looking...

This morning I was hit by yet another little "surprise" that I found sad and well, just hard....

Owey (21 months and built like a barrel) is wearing "Bubba clothes." It isn't necessarily that he's wearing Braeden's actual clothes, but he's a toddler now. He's almost the physical size of Braeden, and already weighs more. So the style of clothing he's wearing, "big boy clothes," is so very similar to what Bub wore during treatment and the infamous "Summer of Bub." Add to that the fact that our little OJo is looking (and sounding and acting) more and more like his big brother every day. And sometimes...oh, sometimes, it takes my breath away to catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye. I'll see him and my heart just stops for a minute. You see, my head knows...it knows, Braeden isn't here. But my heart, well it's much harder to convince. The old saying, "the heart wants what the heart wants" is more than an old saying...and my heart wants, and still expects, to see him.

I still expect sometimes to hear his IV pumps running at night. I still think I'll see him sometimes walking outside to the fire pit. I still get out of the shower some nights expecting to hear his little voice drifting in from the living room. I still wonder sometimes why I don't hear his little feet pounding a path to our bed to cuddle with me in the morning. My heart still looks for my little buddy....even now.

My heart is still looking...it's the reason I had to swallow past a hundred different lumps in my throat this morning watching Owen playing outside. It's the reason a hundred different things a hundred times a day are so very bittersweet. It's because some small part of me still expects to see him here, and it's watching out for him...

If hurt truly is just the dark before the morning, a huge part of my heart is more than ready for sunrise...