2 weeks. We have somehow survived 14 whole days without our baby. I’m not sure how, but we have. There’s not a minute of awake time that goes by that I don’t think of him, and miss him. Not 60 whole seconds straight in any day that I don’t want him back with everything in my soul. The pain in my chest barely subdides and I know this is true heartache showing it’s presence. The longing is a powerful and indescribable pain. I’d give anything to hear his voice, give him our special goodnight kiss, have him hold my hand, or scratch his back. I just miss him. Flashbacks of his last breath pop in my head multiple times a day, I hope that goes away eventually. I can’t stop thinking “Did I say the right things? Did he hear the things I said? Was he comfortable? Etc”. The ONLY thing I want to forget about him is that last breath when the color left his beautiful face, and he was no longer inside of his body.
I found myself not being able to picture his voice saying certain things in my head today. Why? Maybe because I haven’t heard it in 2 weeks? But I have to live the rest of my life not hearing it? I hope it was just today and tomorrow will be different.
I can feel a change in myself that I am so afraid of living with for the rest of my days. Although we kept busy and surrounded by amazing friends and family all weekend, and there were a lot of happy times, the saddness still lingered there inside of the happiness. It’s like our new kind of happiness is not full, it’s a broken happiness. If you can picture a jawbreaker where the outer layer is the happy and the inside colors are all types of sad, that’s how it feels. Maybe the layers will change in time, but the fear of it staying that way hurts.
I feel Payton’s presence in everything I do. I found myself so angry today after picking up the last book he, himself, ever read. He barely learned to read. He deserved to learn to read. Maybe if there was more funding for DIPG he could have learned to, along with all of the other things he never got to do.
This is the last selfie he ever took on my phone. I wonder what he thought of himself. His looks changed so fast because of the steroids he was on, the look in his eyes makes me wonder what he was thinking here. 
Payton Strong 