A mother and her son

Yesterday at lunch one of my co-workers shared her story about losing her 30 year old son to cancer. She told of a time when her 6'1'' son weighed only 114 pounds and was laying in his hospital bed all hooked up to wires and tubes that were sustaining his life. He was crying out because of excruciating pain. She said that as a mother her instinct was to pick up her fragile son and rock him just like she used to do when he was a baby. I was so touched by this image and I couldn't stop thinking about it all day. Of course it reminded me of my sweet little children. Joseph woke up about midnight last night and came and climbed in bed with me. He has had a cold the last few days and hasn't been feeling well. About 4:30 this morning he woke up and was crying. He wanted pizza. I'm not really sure why; he must've been having a realistic dream about eating it or something. He was so tired and was crying about wanting pizza. I scooped him up into my arms and rocked him for a few minutes and quietly explained to him that it was time to sleep and not time to eat. Eventually I got him calmed down and I sat and rocked him. The image of my co-worker and her son returned to my mind. I squeezed my son a little tighter as tears streamed down my face. An immense feeling of love for my son and my daughter overwhelmed me. There will come a time when rocking my little boy will no longer bring him comfort and fix everything like it does right now. I want to try and be so careful to not take these precious years for granted. They are only little like this for so long. So even though I was exhausted last night and just wanted to sleep I took the time to rock my little boy a little bit longer and gave him a little bit tighter squeeze!

This is one of my favorite pictures of Joseph and I. He was almost 1 in this picture.