Blessings

Early this morning cries pulled me reluctantly away from the thick blanket of sleep.  As I shifted to get out of bed I found David, curled in a tight ball at my back, looking so peaceful.  I can't imagine many things sweeter than a childs' sleep face.  I didn't even wake him as I crawled sluggishly around him to the edge of the bed. 

JD was sitting on the bunk bed stairs, crying his little lungs out.  He had a bad dream, he informed me.  As I picked him up I knew the real reason for his cries;  he woke from a bad dream to find himself alone in the room, his brother gone. 

As I calmed my little guy down my thoughts were split between little arms squeezing me tight and my pillow, the warmth of my blankets and the nice, deep sleep I had been enjoying.  Such a nice sleep doesn't come every night... often I have trouble getting to sleep and when I do, tossing and turning keep me near the surface.  So this was, like, feather bed in a five-star suite kind of sleep.

Then I thought of that Kraft slices commercial.  The mom making the grilled cheese for her little boy, then the grown teenage kid making the grilled cheese for the mom.  That one always makes me tear up!!  Not kidding.  It strikes some emotional chord inside me, every time.  It makes me sad.

Mixing in my head with the grilled cheese was a clip from the news yesterday...the mother of that little boy recently returned home.  Little Kienan's mom was speaking of the nights her son was gone, stating that they didn't sleep.  She and her husband split themselves between their children and stayed with them all night.  I would do the same.  How lucky, how blessed they are!!  How many parents are out there who didn't get their little one back?  Who for years, YEARS, are searching, praying, keeping in touch with the investigators, conducting their own investigation, staring at every stranger who might have the same coloring, or hair, thinking "that would be what (fill in name) would look like now"...  I couldn't even imagine a horror like that.   

I just squeezed JD harder, feeling his little arms around me, little arms that feel bigger than yesterday (another growth spurt?!  seriously, the kids hands are huge).  I hugged my little JD and thought of my little David all curled up in my bed, his sweet face at peace in deep sleep.  How lucky, how blessed I am!, I thought while tucking both boys back into their beds.  An extra two or three hugs each (which David was still asleep for, he didn't wake up at all, even through transport), an extra smell of their hair, an extra kiss. 

When I finally crawled back into bed, wriggling down into covers a half-hour before my husbands' alarm, I couldn't sleep!!  Where was the feather bed in the five-star resort? ?  So tired, yet couldn't drift off.

I am so lucky, though.  Blessed.