When Does My Heart Break the Most?

💔
When does my heart break the most?
When I think about this moment:

I knelt on the hospital floor and looked Coleman in the eye.
Then told him, “Dad got sick last night and he died.”

🙎🏻‍♂️🙎🏼‍♂️Coleman and his cousin, Max, were talking in Grandma’s car one day.
The question was, “What was the last thing you said to Jason?”
Max: “I said, ‘Bye! Drive safe!’”
Coleman: “I said, ‘I love you, Dad,’ because it was bedtime.”
Coleman woke up the next morning and his dad had passed away.

Coleman doesn’t grieve like I do.
He shouldn’t.
He spends his days jumping on the tramp, virtual-babysitting his baby cousin, selling stuff to the golfers who go through our neighborhood, playing night games with friends and having matter-of-fact conversations about his dad.
This eleven-year-old boy is now missing more than he even comprehends.
More than he can even realize.
Because he’s just a kid.

But I’m his mom. So I realize it all.

I know what not having your dad around might mean as he reaches his life’s milestones. And every moment that lives between them.
And I know that his dad is missing out on his favorite role: being a live-and-in-person father.

They had a connection.
From the time Coleman was tiny, he would climb up to sit on Jason’s armrest, with his feet in his dad’s lap.
No wiggles. No squirms. No arching his back to try to escape.

For the whole hour of church.
Entire BYU football games.
He would just sit with his dad.
Finding new ways to calmly perch on the chair as he grew bigger.
I think Coleman knew, even as a toddler, that he and his dad were a team. Continuing a relationship from the life before this one.
And that they had to work together differently if they were going to be successful.

I don’t know how losing his dad will affect Coleman as time passes. Experts tell me things to watch for that may be signs of shifts in what Coleman might need. That makes sense to me.

So, I keep a watchful eye and an open heart. And I talk to Jason about our son.
Because he’s still Coleman’s dad.
Still invested in his happiness.

And when they see each other again, I think it will be as friends.
Continuing their uniquely connected relationship - but in person.✊🏻💙