Waking up crying and a little monster video

I was riding a bike with my oldest son Austin. It was a tandem bike that went surprisingly fast for having two riders on it. As we approached a small playground adjacent to a building, something made me slam on the brakes. HARD. We skidded across the sidewalk and the rear part of the bike flew up in the air, hurling Austin across the pavement and head first into the sand. I immediately knew that he must be desperately injured. Disentangling myself from the bike was no easy task, but the panic rising in my chest urged me forward.

I ran to the sandy playground to see if Austin was moving, breathing, alive! But for some reason I couldn't focus. A child, a little boy was yelling or making some sort of sound effects in play. I could see him out of the corner of my eye. Man, he was being really loud, forcing me to move my eyes away from the sand and over to him.

Hey, do you mind being quiet over there?! Someone is really hurt over here!

As I heard myself screaming out these words, the boy looked at me. He was wearing a purple shirt and these little red knit shorts with a navy stripe down the side. I looked a little closer and noticed that he must be close to 4 years old, yellow hair, blue eyes dancing, and a mischievous little grin on his face.

It finally hit me. I began yelling at the top of my lungs "Look!!! That boy has yellow hair and blue eyes! It's my boy! That's him over there!"

It was already too late. Christian was gone.

Despair swept over me and I began to cry. The kind of crying that reaches deep within as if it were pulling out the last breath, the last ounce of hope from me.

I woke up with this crying. Weeping out loud. David asked me what was wrong, but all I could think to say was That boy had yellow hair! It was him! But then he was gone!

I honestly have not had many dreams about Christian this past year. The first dream I had of him after he died, I was walking through an airport terminal. He came from behind me on a little scooter-- he just kept on going way ahead of me. It was like he was on his way to a particular place. I think we were heading to the same place, but at his speed he was definitely going to get there before me. :-)

There was one particular week that I was having a rather difficult time with things-- being sad and just missing him terribly. God blessed me with this amazingly clear dream where I was holding Christian-- holding him close with his legs wrapped around me. He'd kiss me and then kind of sit back a little and look at me and LAUGH. I woke up that morning feeling like I really did get to hold him and kiss him-- I could still feel the weight of him on me and the softness of his cheeks and how his lips were kinda boney feeling because when he'd kiss you, he'd always smile and you could be sure to feel his teeth right behind his stretched out lips.

This dream, however, was very strange, don't you think? I still haven't figured it out yet. I know we don't always have to figure out things-- like why I have dreams about a gorilla hanging underneath my car as I'm driving down the road. But honestly, whenever I have a dream about Christian, it usually ministers directly to my hurting heart (like the hugs and kisses) or tells me something (like the airport- he reached Heaven first, a real place!).

You know what else is weird? I can remember exactly what he was wearing in my dream. This purple-ish shirt:

And these red shorts:

Not the best pictures of my littlest man, but they still make me smile-- ugly painting clothes and all!

I really don't know why I'm even posting this. Maybe I just want to cry because it reminds me that Christian was really here. Because some days, it feels like those precious years with him were just a dream... a figment of my imagination. Others days it feels like he is just in the other room and I think that maybe this is the dream and that is reality (oh if it were true!). *sigh*

Thanks for reading down this far, y'all. I'm sure I have made zero sense here, but it's been good to get it all out instead of saving it as a draft only to delete it a couple days later.

And since I still have ya here, I might as well force a family video on you. Y'know, like crazy Uncle Charlie that corners you and forces you to listen to that same old story he's told a dozen times? :-) Here is one of monster-spiderman-Christian whooping up on his villainous big brothers (July 2007).