Tender-hearted, still

Before Cole's little farewell at Mawmaw's grave, all five of us were driving around a week or so after the funeral. We were at the lake, and were taking one of our trips "to town (read: Sonic)". Unusually, it was quiet inside the suburban. Cole spoke up and said, "I wish I was dead."

Dan and I simultaneously dropped our jaws, looked at each other, and then looked at him. Simultaneously we screamed/asked, "WHYYYY??!?"

Cole responded quite plainly, with no fanfare, "I want to be dead and I want my heart to stop beating so I can be dead and go to Heaven and be with MawMaw."

He was thinking of MawMaw, missing her, and his tender little heart could think of no other remedy! Before she died, while she was in the hospital and was under hospice care, we began preparing the children for her passing. We explained her heart would stop beating, that she would be with Jesus in Heaven, but that her body would stay here with us and that we would bury it in the ground. We talked so much about the permanency of it, and that there was nothing left for the doctors to do to make her get well. He remarked one day that he did not want MawMaw to die, that she made was nice to him and she made him happy. He was never still in her lap or - as he grew mobile - in her presence for more than a nano-second, yet she made an impression on him. He knew she loved him. He only saw happiness in her. I know that because he said that, and because I was there to see it myself.

I thank God, literally, for his tender heart and his honest, raw comments about her life and her death. His comments, emotions, and expressions about her are unsolicited gifts to me as a reminder of MawMaw's loving legacy she left to me and my family.