addam

august 27 will mark the fourth anniversary of the death of a little boy named addam. his mom, at the time a single mom with two children, is one of my closest friends, her kids like a niece and nephew to me.

in early june of 2002 addam was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a brain tumor with a high recurrence and low survival rate. after brain surgery to remove the tumor it returned, and he went to be with Jesus at the end of august. he went peacfully at home with his mother holding him, and those of us who love him all around. he was just barely seven years old. it's hard to conceive how happy he is now, especially when thoughts of him are filled with such sadness over the loss of him in our lives. but i know he is.

addam was such a smart kid, and really funny. he called me sheen-bean, and sometimes i really really miss that. he had this mischievous smile that was all boy, and when you saw it you knew that whatever he was up to was going to make you laugh, even if you didn't want to. he was tender-hearted and affectionate, and even when he was being a stinker you couldn't help but think he was just so cute. he said 'catterpatter' for caterpillar, and we used to ask him what the other word for cemetery was so that we could hear him say, "grade-yard".

walking through that with his mom and sister is still hard, even four years later. as deeply and sadly painful as it has been for me, it's crushing to see how painful it is for them. honestly, i think this year is the first year i haven't been surprised by my own grieving in the distraction of seeing their grief. because i'm more aware of my feelings this time around it seems more painful than it did the second and third year.

it seems wrong that he's gone, strange that it still hurts so much and wrong to think of it not hurting. it's like a lifetime has passed, but then it seems like it just happened. i don't think i'll ever again get through the month of august without thinking of him, and of our holding vigil at his bedside through that night, and what we lost here on earth when he went home. God has been faithful to carry us all through that loss, but it's still loss.

nothing i've ever experienced seemed heavier, darker or more final than seeing the hole in the ground at the graveside service. sometimes my heart aches in my chest when i think about him, and i remember what God told me after the funeral when i asked why it was so crushingly painful. He said, "it hurts because this was not how i designed it to be. seperation was never my plan." isaiah 58 says, "...truly He has borne our grief and carried our sorrow. the price of our peace was taken out on Him..." seperation wasn't how it should be, it was how sin dictated it has to be. but God in His beautiful love and infinite goodness made a way around the price of sin by the most painful means possible...seperation. it blows my mind.

God the Son went through all that so i could join addam in being with Him forever. God made a way for me to hear addam call me sheen-bean again one day.