you would be six

December 4, 2013. Today, Gray would have turned 6 years old! We were honored when the Everaard family invited us to their house to celebrate this special day. We ate yummy food, sang Happy Birthday and then the boys each blew out a candle atop a cookie in honor of Gray. It was a simple and beautiful evening. No fuss. Nothing extreme. Very Gray! 

When we left the Everaard house to go back home that evening Maddox asked me from the backseat "Mom, how do we know it's Grayson's birthday today?" I wasn't sure what he was asking me and so I pressed him for more information. Turns out, Maddox didn't fully understand that we were celebrating the day Gray was born here on earth, with us. He couldn't figure out how we would know what Grayson's birthday was in heaven! The mind of a child. I've said it a thousand times and I'll say it a thousand more, seeing death and heaven and eternity through the eyes of my kids during this time has been overwhelming and, in a way, invigorating. They are excited about heaven! They see it as a wonderful, beautiful place that they are jealous they can't visit! As we celebrated Gray's 6th earthly birthday I was reminded yet again that this world is not our home. I don't know when we lose the innocence of that knowledge and become so attached to our earthly lives but neither one of my boys has yet reached that point. We all miss Gray. We talk about him often. But as my boys blew out their honorary birthday candles they did it in celebration of the life Gray lived and his new home in eternity and not out of sadness for anything he may be missing here. I pray that the Lord let that rub off on me.

It was fun to celebrate Gray's short but full life with our friends! We know that if Gray had been here to celebrate with us he would have hogged all the bread sticks at dinner and probably told us all to go home long before we were ready because he needed some alone time! His personality is still so present in the Everaard home. It's amazing to have known a personality so big that it lives on long after the soul has gone to heaven.