My aunt, who lost her 17 year old son Matt (one of my only two cousins) in 1993, shared with me, soon after Jud died, how she never speaks of her son in the past tense, for she believes he is more alive now than ever before. Conceptually, this resonated with me. Drake and I

My parents live in Ventura, California.  On what turned out to be my last trip to Ventura with Judson, he and I went on a date to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.  It was the end of April and Jud was healthy and whole.  While Jessie napped and my parents stayed at home with

Though probably common in grief, I have found in the last couple weeks that I am holding on more tightly to everyone/everything that brings love and joy in my life.  I’ve caught myself pleading with God that he will now make us immune to any more pain-even bargaining with Him, trying to make a case

In my raw, unchecked thoughts, self-pity threatens to overtake me. I want so desperately to have the life I once enjoyed before our family was ravaged by Krabbe disease, and it is far too easy to look at other people and envy what appears to be a life free of intense hardship.  I begin to

My regular viewing of videos and pictures of Jud continues, but this evening, as I watched a slideshow of my little man, I felt a twinge; it was a twinge of that which troubles me most.  I pulled up the slideshow and saw the first picture.  It was a photo of our family of four,

When I visited Jud’s grave site this week, as I approached, it appeared as though his grave marker had just been placed in the ground.  With this realization, I had to literally take a moment, step back, and breathe deeply before I could proceed, almost as though I was trying to gain the courage to

They call it a “shadow box.” I finished putting together one such “shadow box” today.  Within its frame is an exhibition of a handful of items that trigger significant memories of Jud.  The name “shadow box” seems fitting, seeing as it displays only a small and haunting shadow of the boy that graced our lives

Since Judson’s death, I feel like my head has been screwed on backwards.  I can’t think straight.  I have a harder time remembering things that I was once able to easily recall, I feel confused more often than ever before, and my problem-solving skills feel like they have diminished. Not that my noggin was particularly