On the Second Day

On the second day, the reality was more. There was acceptance. There was great comfort from God and great sadness.  Jeff and I awoke alone. All of the girls had spent the night with a friend. I quickly grabbed my clothes from the previous day and ran out of the bedroom. For some time waking up would be hard to do because Jeffrey would usually be my alarm clock and I would lay for a few minutes listening to his sweet talking and then walk into his room to to see him laying, often recently with his feet propped up on the crib slats and arms behind his little head. He was such a happy, easy-going boy. He would see me and scramble to get up. I would lift him and he would rest his little head on my shoulder and put his arms around my neck. We would go to the kitchen to get some juice and sit on the couch and watch cartoons. He would hold his drink in his left hand and put his right hand on my neck. Oh, how I miss that.
We blindly ran some errands that morning, going to the bank to try to get enough money in one account to cover the expenses we were about to incur, and to get Jeff a haircut. It was so strange to go in and have people ask how we were not knowing what we were facing and just say fine. We were far from fine. They would ramble on about the things going on in their lives as if they were important. Then we went to get our girls to bring them home. It had been so terribly quiet there without them. We were not home long when people gathered again. They would answer the phone, clean, get food ready for the crowds. We would have never made it through these days without all the people that came. They took time out of their busy schedules, just stopped their own lives to become part of ours. It has helped so much to fill the enormous empty hole in our home without Jeffrey here.