I Wish You More

It's Book Fair week at school this week, which means a few things.  It means that my work days are absolutely crazy.  It means that the kids are super excited.  It means that I have to be sociable beyond the school day, with parents, students, and teachers.  It also means that I have a lot of new books to look at!  My stack of "wish list" books gets taller every day, as I keep finding new books I hadn't seen the first twenty times around the book fair (shhhh...don't tell Tim!) 

One of the books that I found on one of my walk-arounds, and absolutely fell in love with, is I Wish You More by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld.  In this book, the author wishes you "more ups than downs," "more hugs than ughs," and "more bubbles than bath."  In the end, she says she wishes all of this for you, "because you are everything I could wish for...and more."  As I read these last couple of pages, my eyes teared up as I immediately thought of my boys.

Both times, when we got pregnant, we had a lot of wishes.  We wished for a safe and healthy pregnancy.  We wished for a healthy baby.  We wished for the skills and knowledge to keep a baby healthy and happy.  We wished for patience with each other as we navigated the new territory of parenthood.  When Brady was born, we wished for the strength to carry on.  We wished for the courage to say his name and share his story.  We wished for our marriage to strengthen and for the ability to grieve together rather than grow apart.  When Henry was born, we wished for (and got!) a happy and healthy baby.  In the early days, we wished for sleep.  We wished for the opportunity to take him places and do things with him.  We always wished for more time together.  When Henry got sick, we wished and prayed that he would get better.  We wished for wisdom for the doctors and nurses who cared for him.  And when he died, we once again wished for the strength to carry on, and we wished to be able to carry out his legacy.

Even (or especially) since losing our boys, we still have wishes.  We wish to have more children, and we wish long, healthy lives for any that we may be blessed with.  We wish to continue enjoying a strong, loving marriage.  We wish to feel purposeful in life...as individuals, as a couple, and as parents.  We wish to keep A Monster's Mission going strong...to keep raising awareness for the need for specialized research for pediatric cancer, and to use Henry's story to touch lives and bring joy to others.  We wish joy and happiness for all that follow our story.  We wish that other parents will never know the pain of losing a child, but we also wish to be a resource for those that do experience such a tragic loss.  We wish all of these things because our boys give use the strength to do so, and they most definitely are everything we could wish for, and more.