The other day, though, I looked at FunnyWriterMommy when I opened my web browser, and I thought three months?! THREE MONTHS?! Seriously? Something must be done. Three months is a very long time.
That was one week ago.
I didn't know when I began that day what the day would bring, had already brought. And, reflecting on the past three months, I didn't think about what that amount of time really meant.
Three months is, indeed, a long time. But, somehow, by the end of last week Monday, it seemed like a very short time. Three months ago, we baptized Addison, giving her to God, acknowledging that she had always been His, and thanking Him for the short life of Baby Zion. Then, we got back to living our lives. Since then, Addie has learned to eat "real" food. She has learned to roll over from her front to her back and back over again. She babbles now, and she giggles. Megan speaks much more clearly now and is learning to potty on the toilet, and Ellie has really learned to read. For us, it has been a long time.
But for one family, the time was too short.
Three months ago, Vaughn Arthur Barckholtz wasn't sick. He was just a healthy, four-year-old boy learning to enjoy books and loving his mom, his dad, his cousins, his flashlight, and his every day. He was full of life. Then he started to get bruises. He started to have pain where he didn't before. He started to get sick.
Less than three months ago, he was diagnosed with ALL Leukemia, and he was sent to the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor. In March, he beat his leukemia. But then he got RSV and pneumonia. He beat the RSV, though his lungs were severely damaged, but he couldn't beat the pneumonia. It was diagnosed as MRSA. Then, by a miracle, he beat that, too. Machines were keeping him alive as treatments tried to fix his lungs. But he was alive. And he was free of all those letters that had tried to take him from his family.
Then, on a Saturday, he started bleeding. Doctors couldn't understand where the bleeding was coming from, or why. Two days later, one week ago today, his heart rate skyrocketed while his blood pressure plummeted. His family gathered, and they told him they loved him. Because they did. The last three months hadn't changed that. But it wasn't enough. For reasons we won't understand until they cease to matter as we stand at the feet of our Savior, God called him home. Just a couple of days shy of 4 and a 1/2 years after God delivered him into the arms of his parents, God called him home. That wasn't long enough, God. It just wasn't. How can three months seem like such a long time while 4 1/2 years isn't long enough? And how can three months be a long time for some but be far too sudden for a little boy to go from healthy to gone from this world?
I don't know. But I know that Beau's cousin Chad and his wife Sarahbeth will never fully recover from this three months.
O God, whose beloved Son took children into his arms and blessed them: Give us grace to entrust Vaughn to your never-failing care and love, and bring us all to your heavenly kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.Taken from The Book of Common Prayer, The Burial of the Dead: Rite Two, "At the Burial of a Child"
Most merciful God, whose wisdom is beyond our understanding: Deal graciously with Chad and Sarahbeth in their grief. Surround them with your love, that they may not be overwhelmed by their loss, but have confidence in your goodness, and strength to meet the days to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
