Broken

I've always heard that it gets easier with time.  That's a nice thought, but it's not true.  My days get harder as time goes by, the pain deeper, more acute.  My heart seems to break more with each passing day without him, if that is possible.  I have not reached a point where my thoughts of him bring smiles or laughter.  Or if they do bring a smile, the tears quickly follow.  Soft, single tears too quickly and easily turn to sobs.  I'm haunted by our last few days together.  He was so healthy...laughing, playing, being his ornery self.  How could it have turned so quickly?  How could we go from healthy to gone in a 24-hour period?  I can't wrap my mind around it.  The "what-if's" are overwhelming.  Even though I believe God's Word.  Even though I know He is sovereign over all things.  Even though I know deep within that He already knows the number of our days and nothing we do can change them.  All of that and I'm still haunted by "what-if's."
My 2yo asks several times a week, "When will we fly away like William?"  Suddenly, the magnitude of how temporal everything on this earth is is so real to me.  I've always KNOWN it.  Still, I ignored the truth that "life is but a vapor."  I said it.  I repeated it.  But my heart denied it.  I resisted it.  Now I FEEL it.  I wonder how long it will be before I see my son again.  I realize that with each passing day, I am one step closer.  Closer to being whole.  Closer to being restored.
And yet, there are things that bring me back to the now.  First, do I long to see my Lord the way I long to see my son?  That's a big one.  It's one I struggle with on a daily basis.  Oh, Lord, draw me close to You.  Give me a desire for You above all else and help me not to set up idols in my heart.
Second...oh, these children!  They need me to be here.  They need normalcy.  They need to know that everything will be okay.  How do I convey that when I don't feel it?  But because life is but a vapor, I don't want to miss a moment of it.  I don't want to "check out."  I want to experience their joys, their successes, their disappointments.  I want to hold their hand, snuggle with them, carry them as long as possible.  I look back on William's last night and I'm so grateful that I spent it next to him, holding his hand.  He wasn't afraid or struggling, I just wanted to hold him.  I could not save him, but I loved him deeply and he knew it.
I never imagined this life.  I took for granted that our happy little family would always coast along in joy.  Sure, I knew we'd have bumps along the way that we would face together, in strength and unity.  I never dreamed the bump would be an earthquake that shook everything to the very core.  And though we are facing this devastation with strength and unity, it's not the strength I had imagined.  It's not strength that we muster up.  It is the Lord alone Who carries us through.  It is HIS strength we rely on because our own is wholly insufficient, inadequate to the core.