Dear Jeffter
6-29-2022
Dear Jeffter,
One year, ten months, and five days you have been gone. I miss you. It’s been almost two years and I still have trouble wrapping my head around it. I miss your big smile and cheerful laughter. I miss cuddling with you and reading books. I miss watching your fevers and doing everything we could to keep them down. I miss drawing up so many different medicines to do what I could to help you. I miss troubleshooting how much, how often, and what we could feed you. I miss fighting with the feeding pump. I miss pushing two chairs to school to take you and Mathilde there. I miss those times when you were crying and we didn’t really know what was wrong and I crawled in your bed and held you until you went to sleep in some sort of awkward position you felt comfortable in. I miss giving you head rubs. I miss the way your eyes lit up when you were truly happy. I miss your hugs. I miss getting frustrated by the lack of answers as we sought to help you. I miss the hours upon hours of research I did trying to help you. I miss worrying about you every time I left, hoping you didn’t get sick while I wasn’t here. I miss hearing about what new thing you learned in school. I miss getting your perfect spelling tests back. I miss making you birthday cakes and celebrating another year of your life. I miss being your person. 
My life is truly better having you a part of it. My theory is that you got your last pneumonia from getting an endoscopy. An endoscopy that I asked for you to get. After the test there was so much saliva and you were gasping for breath. It was painful for me to watch, I can’t imagine how you felt—unable to speak, unable to control the amount of secretions and minimally able to control what to do with the secretion, and trying so hard to take breaths. I just wanted to help the bleeding you seemed to be doing in your esophagus. Getting an endoscopy the last time helped you when you could have died if we didn’t get your bleeding under control. I’m sorry I asked for the test that may have caused the aspiration pneumonia your body just couldn’t fight off. I thought it was what you needed. Maybe you did need it but maybe it caused bigger issues. I’m sorry, Buddy. I fought so much for you, but it wasn’t enough in the end. Your last month is full of so many precious memories and memories that are hard to sit and think about, but will never be hard to find. I loved how your body was no longer so tight and cuddling was so much easier. I loved reading with you, watching movies with you, playing games with you, and talking with you. If I could set up “makeshift church” in your bed or on the porch and watch a service with you again I would jump at the chance. I’m really so grateful for all the time we had to spend together in your last days. You weren’t really able to let me know what you wanted to do or not, but thank you for loving me back so well. I will always cherish all those times we just sat and cuddled and listened to worship music.
There were so many times your oxygen dropped. We didn’t know if that was the end or not, but you usually evened back out with the help of extra oxygen. We had to do so much suctioning because swallowing became harder and harder to do. You scared us a lot of times, Buddy. But I guess in your last weeks you just had to help us remember all the times you scared us throughout your life. You fought so hard so many times. In fact in the end you kept hanging on far longer than we thought you would. I had to tell you it was okay to go. With so many tears and so much love I held you so tight as we talked about all of the great memories you gave me and told you that heaven is so much better than life here, especially how you were living it in the last weeks. You slept more than you were awake. Your body rejected food and you were living only on oral rehydration serum through your tube. You stopped reacting to any sort of noise or people. Your time was done, but you held on until I was able to tell you, you could go. Your last bath will always be engrained in my brain. You had gotten so thin—you lived your whole life thin but this was a whole new meaning to that word. I got to so tenderly wipe you down while working quickly so your oxygen didn’t drop too low from not being propped up. I couldn’t do it fast enough so I called in help. Jesula finished your bath while I held your head at an inclined position. I didn’t know it was your last bath, but I knew you didn’t have much time left. Even though it is a painful memory to think about you that way, I’m so thankful it is so vivid and I can remember that last day together.
I could not have asked for a better way for you to pass away (if that is even a thing). I got to hold you as we gathered and worshipped and prayed. We sat in your chair swing and sung praises and giving thanks to God. We thought about what your life may look like when you do go to heaven and smiled with what could only come from the peace of Jesus. We got to cry together in your last moments and beyond. The minutes of when you took your last breath and your heartbeat for the last time is still so clear, like a video in my mind. Buddy, we were surrounded by so many people that loved us. How beautiful was that? 
JJ, you will always hold a huge spot in my heart. I wish so much I could hold you in my arms again, but I know life is so much better where you are. I’m not sad for you, but I can’t help but be sad for us because we don’t get to see your smiling face anymore. You are so worth it all.
With so much love,
Tori
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