6 years.

Happy Birthday big guy!!  Kai, you’d be 6 years old today!  It’s hard to think that you’d have just finished Kindergarten.  Right now, you’d be excited for 1^st grade.  I’m here on the couch in the condo we’ve stayed at 3 times now.  It helps us to come here.  We stayed here for the first time on your 1^st birthday.  When we got here last weekend, Mom and I read in the guest book here the comments we wrote after that week here in 2015.  We cried together.

June 20, 2014, marks an awful day in our lives.  The day you went to Heaven was supposed to be a great day.  God had other plans.  A few weeks after that day someone told us of a statistic that for couples who lose a child, 80% are divorced within 5 years.  I really don’t know why they said that, but I’m glad they did.  It let us know how hard things would be.  It let us know how hard we’d have to work to keep our family together.  Every year since then, it feels like a milestone that we’ve made it another year.

I’ve been thinking all week about what to write in this letter.  Writing this letter has become something I do each year on your birthday.  Perhaps it’s my way to mark the milestone of making it through another year.  I know it has only been through God’s strength that we’ve made it.  Early on when crying was about the only thing we could do, we wondered how we’d ever make it.  God has been faithful though.  One day at a time.  When I write this letter each year it helps me reflect back on the past year and see that we are making it.

It’s been a really busy year.  I realized that I haven’t even written on my blog since last year!  Katherine got her learner’s permit to start driving.  The boys started new schools in Pell City.  Things at Cropwell are keeping us busy.  It’s a great church and you’d love it, just like your siblings do!

Mom started working at a restaurant in November.  It kept her busy in the evenings.  I learned to make a lot of dinners!  In January she went on a mission trip to Southeast Asia.  They had an incredible time!  They saw God do so much in those 2 weeks.  After she returned there was this virus going around that was new.  People were afraid and life began to change.  Schools closed down, businesses closed, Mom and millions of others lost their jobs.  Churches stopped meeting in person.  It was a very hard time.

In the middle of that we bought a house.  You would love it.  There’s so much room to run around and play.  We have chickens and a big garden.  We’re talking about getting cows and goats and who knows what else!  Karis Lynn spends all day outside playing with the neighbors.  You’d be right out there too!

I miss you.  We all miss you.  Our family is not complete without you here.  Kai, your siblings are looking forward to sending up balloons today.  It helps them heal.  It helps all of us.  God didn’t create this world with death and hurt and pain.  Sin brought that into the world.  This is not how it is supposed to be.  I can’t wait to see the words of Revelation 21:4 come true, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Love,
Dad