After a few very emotional days I really can’t think of a better feeling than this sweet girl asleep on my chest. I do my very best to keep my emotions in check in front of my kids, but I truly feel Leighton can sense them even without me showing them. She always seems to be very in tune with Mommy and ready to cuddle exactly when I need it most. Tonight as we said our prayers and snuggled she asked me about the hospital where I got to hold her the very first time. So as best I could I described the hospital and the day she was born. Listening to her ask questions I could literally see her little mind trying to process the things I was telling her. She has asked me before about Braxton and Jean Paul’s special day too, but tonight she wanted to know all about hers. As we talked and giggled about her first bath, her first time getting her hair combed and even her first toot as she put it nicely lol... I heard her ask “Did you leave me there?”
At first i was a little puzzled and asked her “Leave you where baby?”
“At the hospital with Jesus?”
I was glad she couldn’t see my face in the dark or by the way she was laying because I know I looked confused??????
“Leighton; Mommy and Daddy brought you home from the hospital remember the pictures we have where we were so happy?”
“Yes and the blue blanket from Bubba was on me too!”
She was right too we had a special blue blanket from Bubba for her draped over her car seat in all her coming home pictures.
“But why did you leave Bubba there?”
And that’s when it hit me she has questioned Braxton only being in pictures at the hospital but now I think she was putting it together that we never got to bring him home at all. My heart sank because the last thing I wanted her was to be sad or to ever think he was left all alone at the hospital.
Softly I told her “Baby Bubba did get to leave the hospital: he got to go to heaven! Mommy would never leave him unless I knew he was safe.”
As I felt myself starting to tear up I tried my hardest to fight the urge of losing it in front of her. And that’s when her tiny hand grabbed mine in the dark and said.....
“When you left you went with Daddy and Bubba went with Jesus like this!”
And that’s when I felt a squeeze from her little hand. “Jesus held his hand like me and you when we are by the cars and shopping! He held it tight like you do so he wouldn’t get hurt.”
Well no holding back tears now for sure. As I laid there with her still holding my hand I let the tears roll down my face freely. I couldn’t help but smile in the dark because my 4 year old had just described to me in her own way that Bubba was safe when he left the hospital because she knew Jesus held his hand. He held his hand the same way I hold hers... in a way that she feels protected! I do not know if you can question something like that from a child’s mouth! I will have that vision of him from now on etched in my mind! My sweet boy reaching for Jesus’s hand as they walked to the safety of Heaven protected in the arms of our Lord!!!
If that is not a perfect image I don’t know what is!!!
