Halloween

I have had to been asked a million times what we were doing tonight and if we were celebrating Halloween… almost every time when I told the person that we didn’t know they looked at us slightly embarrassed and asked if we were anti Halloween. The truth is no, I am not anti-halloween. The truth is something that is far different that you can ever imagine.


6 years ago today, I packed up the car with a 30day old baby and I went to go visit Adam’s work. It was our first real trip somewhere; Aden still has in his room a picture of him in his Daddy’s arms. I know exactly where it was in Adam’s office and I am always amazed that my amazing and awesome son was that little and he is such a big boy now. So Halloween rolls around and I instantly think of that picture and I smile from ear to ear… my 1st born with his daddy. How time flies?


1 year ago, 365 days ago, our family was blessed with a friend who MADE Zach’s costume for him. He had been so sick I wasn’t going to worry about it. But the middle of Oct rolled around and Zach was doing so well we decided that YES we were going to go to our churches Trunk or Treat. Our preschool department went above and beyond for my boys, for Zach. Zach at the time could only have a few things by mouth, well he could only have powerade/Gatorade and plan lays potato chips. So at each trunk he got playdoh, stickers, crayons, powerade/Gatorade, and/or chips. At one of the booths he got a glow stick. I still remember the boys with the glow sticks. Zach (well all of us) walked around; he played attempting to shoot a basket and to kick a field goal. We as a family went on a hay ride and the gentleman driving it kept checking on Zach to make sure it wasn’t too fast. I have pictures of that night; in his homemade wonderful costume, laughing, smiling, and so full of life, we got to be a family and we have pictures of it. We have pictures of us as a family of 4.


So why am I telling you this… that night we had no idea that that event would be the LAST event that we would do as a family at our church. Church isn’t just a place for us to be, our faith in Jesus and our relationship with Him and God isn’t just something that we do on Sunday morning, it is our life. We had no reason to think that with Zach doing so well that less than a year later he wouldn't be here.  we wouldn’t be celebrating Halloween together again this year. He was so full of life and so happy and he had such a GOOD time going and getting things that he could have to eat and do. It was a “normal” night to him due to the love of our church, of his church, his church felt like he was that special, something that we didn’t realize until later. I realized that the last thing we did as a family of 4 at our church was the trunk or treat. We attempted to bring Zach some, but after that point he was really just too weak and had a hard time. The pictures of our family in our church parking lot are so very special to me. I am so appreciative of those that took the time and the money (it wasn’t cheap to do his stuff) to make that night special for Zach, but I am now eternally grateful that they did it because it allowed my family a night of normalcy in what was going to be a rough year.


So are we going to celebrate tonight… Adam and I don’t want to. However, we may when it comes down to it. We aren’t sure what we are going to do and we are going to play it by ear.