Recently, within the past three months, someone posted on Facebook a meme that reflected the desire for heaven to have visiting hours. As time trudges onward past December 26 (how is it that tomorrow will be three months since we lost you?), I find myself wishing more and more than heaven indeed had visiting hours.

 

If heaven had visiting hours, I think I would explode with joy. I don’t think I would be able to withstand the thrill of the ride to heaven. I would have to go alone that first trip without your father or Lillianne because though I have other loves in heaven (Memaw and PaPa), you would be all I could see to see. Even in heaven, I wouldn’t have the capacity to be selfless enough to share you (after all, I’m still a sinful human).

 

I would run harder than I’ve ever run in my life when I saw you. I would catch you in my arms and hug you so close. I would hold you and kiss the top of your head. You would be a little boy, not much older than Lillianne is now. At a year and a half, you would still have your babyish features, but you would look like you, and you would be you…an exuberant toddler glimpsing at the child and the man you would become.

 

You would have your father’s warm, brown eyes; they would be pools of dark chocolate (which, as you know, your sister is obsessed with). You would have his dark hair –it may even be black. You would be energetic and lively (as your behavior in my womb would indicate). I like to think that you would love to sing and that you wouldn’t be embarrassed by my bad singing.

 

I would like to think that when I could stop hugging you, and when I could look at you, and when I could speak, we would sing, “You Are My Sunshine.” Except, I would mean it to say son shine, because you’re my shining son. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’ve sang that to you before. I would ask you that, though, given your age, I wouldn’t expect you to really understand what I meant. I would like to think you would hug me when I asked if you heard me singing to you in heaven.

 

I suppose after I got myself together, I would lift you onto my hip and kiss you cheek, and we would go say hello to other family in heaven. I would make sure you were well cared for. You deserve your mother’s hugs and kisses every day; all babies deserve their mother’s love. Even in heaven, you shouldn’t be without us. I would tell you how much your daddy and Lillianne loved you and couldn’t wait to hug you.

 

Oh, Jude. If you ever got to meet your sister on Earth, you couldn’t ask for a better protector. She always shares her toys, and she loves to give hugs and kisses. She hugs the baby that would have been your friend, Cate, all of the time, and Cate loves it. She passes around toys during story hour, and she is quick to laugh. On the playground, she fears nothing. I know if you were here now like my God you should be, you would be watching her, little one and half month old, itching to move, and she would be more than ready to show you the ropes when you were ready.

 

Oh, my son. I know you should be in heaven because that’s what God chose for you, but it doesn’t help much sometimes when I miss you so much, and when I see how much love your sister has to give. When I know how much your father misses “his boy.”

 

You will show me the splendor of our maker’s kingdom, which I believe is more like a feeling than something we can conceivably see. I think that perhaps more than it looks like the sun rising over a dew kissed Swiss meadow, heaven gives us the feeling of such…where anything is possible. It will feel like a basket of kittens, a crackling fire, or a wave of warm seawater all at the same time. I imagine ever glorious emotion will meld itself into one in heaven, and it will be truly amazing. I won’t want to go home.

 

I will promise you that even though on Earth, you father and I seem okay to the outsider’s perspective, we are broken on the inside. Our depression lacks convention in terms of what most people understand, but it’s real, so very real. Moving onward is like walking on spiked ground. I suffer inside; my work suffers. You father suffers inside. Our minds and bodies suffer for longing for you.   I don’t want you to feel guilty or saddened by this as your ascension was nothing we could control….I just want you to know that outward appearances are only just that, which I feel is probably true for most people.

 

When it comes time to depart, as we must as visiting hours are what they are, I will hug you the same as when I saw you. I will hug you closely and kiss you on the cheeks and the mouth and the neck and the shoulders and then the cheeks and mouth again. I will press you into my embrace so tightly that I think if you were on Earth, I might break you. I’m pressing the memory of your little body into me because I want to remember you and feel you everyday.

 

I’m not afraid to be happy nor am I afraid to forget you, but I am afraid to lose the tingle of your touch and the feel of your little body held tightly and –if only for a moment—protected in my arms.

 

I would leave heaven, my heart heaving with a gaping, open wound. You live so far away from me, and it will –most likely—be so very long before I can come live with you (and that’s only if I’m good enough, which I try to be). It would feel like the day I lost you all over again. I would feel like I was gashed open and left to die for pain and misery because that’s how Earth is. Where you are, darling, there’s none of that.

 

I think that’s why heaven doesn’t have visiting hours. Discovering the bliss of where you are would make returning to Earth –despite its occasional strong points, completely and utterly grey. You have all of the colors, darling, and I’m happy for that because if you cannot have mommy and daddy and Lillianne’s hugs and kisses ever day, at least you have the Son, my son.