[rickr]

Poin,
Your beautiful tribute to your son shows just how strong of a person you must be. I’m a lurker for the most part here, but I just had to respond to your post. I really can’t even explain why. Part of me actually feels guilty because I was blessed with four boys. Someone posted in this thread that they had to throw up their hands and ask why. It makes me think of a commercial for a tv show (don’t know which one) where someone asks why we have death, and the person answers “to make life important”. Sounds simple enough at first, but with more thought, it’s a very strong statement.
You stated this is lasting longer than you thought it should. Let it. Digest every bit of it. If years from now you feel the need to cry, cry. Never feel like your through. As hard as it is, it can, and by reading your post, it will make you a better person. You will have just a little more joy looking into the eyes of your child, or children, than the rest of us. You will take joy in the simplest of things in your life, that many others will miss.
I don’t know if you are religious or not, but in a sense, by posting this, you have done a very good thing for your fellow man, and made your child, don’t know how to say it, Christ like. How can I explain? By reading of your loss, your pain, every one you touched went home, held their loved ones a little tighter, gave an extra goodnight kiss, and felt compassion for those they never thought they could. So through your sacrifice, we are made better. Thank you for baring the burden.
I can’t begin to imagine what you and your wife are going through. I have had losses in my life, and near losses that come close in feeling.
When my first was born, my wife and I were 17 years old. I was too stupid to even worry. We never even had any prenatal care. Ignorance is bliss. My second at 18, the same applied. Those were wonderful times, my head in the sand.
But, I was the one that answered the phone at the jobsite with notification that one of my brother in law’s that I worked with (and had been good friends with since early childhood) 2 month old daughter did not wake from her nap, so I had to tell him.
I got to go through the fear of my wife’s next pregnancy when we found out, like her sister, she too was having twins. The high risk pregnancy, the premature births, the months of baby monitors ringing in the night. Scary as hell. No more head in the sand.
I was there when we almost lost one of the twins to spinal meningitis at age 4. Scariest week of my life.
I was the one that had to make the decision on whether to pull the plug on my mom after she was robbed and beaten and left for dead. I will never forget the feeling when they told us the eeg showed minimal brain activity.
And just shy of 2 years ago I got to watch my father, who had gotten mad and refused to talk to me for over a year, was diagnosed and died of cancer, without a kind word to me or my family.

Why am I sharing this with you? Not to try and say my pain compares to what you are going through. Please don’t take it that way. It’s more to show that life has it’s ups and downs, but you can make it through. Through all that I still have my wife. 22 years now we have been together. What I’m trying to say is don’t try and be strong for her. Be strong for both. Don’t be afraid to cry with her. Open up with her, grieve with her, and stand together.
Your marriage will be tested in the months to come. Do not hide from your feelings, and don’t put on a strong face all the time for her sake.
I know this may not make a lot of sense. There just random thoughts not put in any decent order. I hope you can find some tidbit of wisdom in this that will help you, and above all else, please accept my sympathies to you and yours.

God Bless,
Rick