A Father's Heart

"Our little family is good.  Everyone is as healthy as life allows, and we are being well taken care of by our Father in Heaven.  How I love and appreciate how much my Father in Heaven looks out for my family.  I have a job, and we live comfortably. How grateful I am. Ahh (deep sigh). 
You know when your children have a disease where the prognosis is you will likely watch them die, your heart is never fully free to not live in fear.  To not live in the fear that one day you will experience heart wrenching pain, and anguish.  As deep down as you try and bury the knowledge that you will experience a loss that burns throughout your life, it somehow manages to remain near the surface.  
I love my boys.  I love and miss my sweet Princess Addi.  
I love my children.



I think lately Keaton is beginning to understand his unique situation, and his physical limitations. More now then ever before he says how he wishes he could walk.  I had the privilege of helping him get off the toilet and clean his bum and I said to him. “Shoot bud how are we going to do this when you are HUGE!?” Keaton responded directly and without any apparent fear, “Well, I probably won't be alive.”
Like cold, frozen daggers piercing my heart I saw in Keaton the knowledge of his mortal and compromised body.  What child do you know that doesn't respond with "when I grow up?" to simple questions about life? Without us really ever talking about it, Keaton knows that his version of growing up is very different.  I asked him, “Pal why do you think that? Why'd you say that?”  He said, “Well Dadda, people that don't walk probably don’t live long.” 


My heart sank like the Titanic hitting cold reality knowing that my son knows about his mortality.  If I didn't have a testimony I would be able to say to you, and look you in the eyes, I cannot go through losing another child.  If I had a choice I would not.  I would get lost in some drug induced coma and end up floating off the shore in Vietnam.  There are days where all I want to do is crawl into a hole, disappear, and cease to exist or feel.  But alas I am asked to carry on.  To move forward, firmly holding to that hope in Christ.  
So I will, for in Him will I find an eternal reprieve to sorrow and loss, a reward for standing up and walking on." 


-Ryan Weimer