My Dear Jud Bud,

I’m sitting on the beach where I used to play as a child.  It is beautiful.  I recall those days when I had not a care in the world…running, laughing, and playing, a time in life when my only concern was the chaffing sand in my bathing suit. 

You and I played on this beach together too.  You squished the sand between your toes, climbed on the rocks, wrote in the sand with a stick, all the while hesitating to let the tiny waves lap onto your feet.  It was November 2, 2006; we never fathomed we were just a year from your death.

But now, today marks 2 ½ years since losing you…

Here I lay, prone on the same beach, watching the tears drip off my face, saturating the sand below.  Who would have imagined in my childhood days on this shore that almost thirty years later I would be the woman sobbing on the seaside as other children play nearby, heartbroken over the turns that life has taken, heartbroken over losing you.

My heart is filled with inexpressible longing for you, Judson, and great anguish over how unfamiliar you now feel.  I don’t know whether you are still almost three years old, or aging in heaven, or already a mature soul, but I am acutely aware that who you are, fully alive in heaven, is different from who you were.  And although you are now perfect in every way, who you were is all I know.

I so desperately want to know you now.  Every day I wish I could reach beyond the veil that separates us and peer into your world.  Maybe I could catch a glimpse of you splashing and laughing on a sandy shore, truly free from every encumbrance of this earthly life, your smile glistening off the water as you splash and play.  But instead I am relegated to longings that cannot be fulfilled by my imagination.

Oh how I miss you, Juddy!  And with each passing day, my longings for you grow.

Until that day when you and I are reunited on that glorious shore, I hope you are able to peer beyond the veil and see my deep love for you and the impact, by God’s grace, that your sweet spirit is having on people’s lives.

I continue to stand in awe that I have been given the gift to be your mama.

I love you with all my heart,
Mommy