Parenting moments in time

This morning I got a package from one of my clients – a large company. I opened it up, thinking that it was likely a baby gift of some kind because this company is full of incredibly thoughtful people whom I consider friends. But instead, this is what I found inside:

It took me a moment to figure out what I was looking at, but when I did, I sank to my knees and began crying ….and crying…and crying – huge salty tears that wouldn’t stop. I cried for my baby, for the time we had together and the time we will never have together, and for all the small moments of parenting him that seemed so inconsequential at the time, but were in fact the most important moments of my life as his mother.

What this is is a section of drywall cut out of the wall of the little house where Henry, J, E and I lived for several years after my divorce from their dad but before I met and married Jon. Like many parents, I marked my children’s heights on the wall of our house each year, and apparently, when we moved out of the house, we left the annual growth notes I’d made on the walls.

Several years after we moved from our little house – a wonderful home that we all loved and enjoyed very much – I realized that the person who had bought it was an employee of one of my clients – someone with whom I now work closely on various projects. He and I have talked several times at various work-related meetings about how much I loved the house and how happy I am that he loves it just as much.

After Henry died on May 31st, this wonderful guy, James noticed that Henry’s growth marking with the date I’d made still existed on the wall of his house, so he cut it out of the wall, had it beautifully framed along with a measuring tape that shows how tall Henry was on 12/23/05, and had it sent to me.

This incredibly thoughtful keepsake is now undoubtedly the most special memory of Henry that I have. I can’t stop looking at it, and closing my eyes and remembering Henry at 14, the year that I wrote that mark and date on the wall. If someone had told me that less than five years later, my sweet, beloved Henry would be dead of a drug related brain injury, I would have found that prediction as far fetched as if someone had suggested that he would grow a set of wings and learned to fly by age 18. It simply wasn’t possible. He was just a child – a child who was so proud to have finally hit 5 feet tall on that day I stood him against the wall to measure and mark his height for posterity.

Thank you James. Thank you SO MUCH for allowing me to have this memory of my son, which I know involved some significant hassle on your part because you actually cut this out of your wall. I will treasure this forever in a way that I am not sure I can even describe. I miss Henry so much.

This is our little house, where we were very, very happy. Lots of great memories there.

Here are Henry and E in front of the house, when Henry was 14 and Elliot was 7.