Pumpkin Pie and 11 candles

My dear James,

It's Thanksgiving day,
and it's also
YOUR BIRTHDAY!
And you are absolutely, positively, 100%
11 years old.

I know it's been sneaking up on you since you were, well....a toddler.
That independent spirit.
Keen Intuition.
Navigational skills.
Super hero and helper.
Always aware.
Positively Correct.
All. The. Time.

You were born to be 11.

And it frees me up just a bit.  Because I feel better about you roaming about as your 11 year old self, digging up holes, catching fish, building fires and chicken coops, babysitting babies and bugs....

11 years ago today, it, too was Thanksgiving Day, and I was counting my blessings at
Norfolk General Hospital:
my healthy baby boy, snuggly and fat,
the hospital pumpkin pie which was absolutely divine,
and your Daddy, the best birthing coach in the land.

And there we were.  A little happy-ish family.
And we had no idea what was about to go down. Did we?

And then year after year it never ceased.
The re-shaping, the re-grouping of our family, the gnawing ache in my heart for something
that could never be, the sudden shifting tides,
the silent dragon, that only breathed fire,
but never ever spoke.

The mourning.
The waiting.
The night time.
The medicating.
The self-medicating.
The morning.

And every time we cycled through, you added a brick and put it in a basket around your neck, and you tried with all your might to hold your head up high.
But you couldn't any longer.
The bricks weighed you down to the bottom of the ocean floor.
And you stayed.
And we waited. Very patiently.

Praying, begging, pleading with the Savior
to pick you up, and put a new song in your mouth,
and give you back.

And in your time, and in your way, you crept right back into my arms again.
Right where you started 11 years ago.

It wasn't the greatest year, was it?
In fact, it may have been the worst.

But James,
You overcame.
You needed time to heal, time to process, time to re-learn,
and time to re-imagine your life again.

We will never be the same.
And we never want to be.

Happy Birthday my sweet, sweet boy.
I just know that 11 is gonna be the sweetest.