It’s been another month.  Five months ago we said goodbye to our sweet baby Paxon Ray.  The hurt and pain is still so deep.  My pillow is often wet from tears.  I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to stop the tears when I think of him or talk about him.  Most of the memories we have of him were wrapped in anxiety as we prepared for his arrival, and breaking hearts as we watched our boy suffer.  Not only do we miss him, but we hate all that he had to go through in his 11 days here.

No tubes.  No needles.  No monitors.  No mean doctors.  No blood draws.  Nothing…but eternal peace.  Laughter.  God’s presence.  Angels.  Light.  Heaven…the place where he is, and the place I long to be.

Two incredibly sweet friends, Nina and Beth came together and made this for us.  Paxon’s name, with the lyrics to the song Kristie Braselton wrote in honor of his life.  We will treasure this forever.

Paxon Ray (click to open in Windows Media Player)

Paxon Ray

We gazed at you in black and white
We prayed for you night after night
Paxon Ray

Those tiny hands and tiny heart
We fought for you right from the start
Paxon Ray

Only Jesus knew how long we’d have with you
So we treasured every moment you were here

Sweet Paxon Ray, with us just eleven days
How we wish you could have stayed
Sweet Paxon Ray, we will hold you once again
One wonderful Day, sweet Paxon Ray

Oh the joy the day you came
You were so small and yet so brave
Our Paxon Ray

Your fragile fingers gripped us tight
You wouldn’t go without a fight
Paxon Ray

We know that now our Father has healed your heart for you
And one day he’ll make our broken hearts whole too

We weren’t finished loving you
Our little boy, you will always be
No, we weren’t finished loving you
So we’ll love you into eternity

We are so thankful for everyone’s love for our family, and our sweet, Paxon.  We thank you for carrying on his legacy.  We never want him to be forgotten.

Our beautiful boy, you will always be a part of our family.

My friend, Krista, always does little interviews with her kiddos so I thought it would be fun to try it out on Asher.  He munched on pickles and I sat down with a pad and pen and tried not to giggle…

What’s your name?  “Asher Olimb”

How old are you?  “Free in half”

What’s your favorite color?  “Green”

What’s your favorite dinosaur?  “T-Rex”

What’s  your favorite construction equipment?  “Tractor”

What’s your favorite thing to do with Daddy?  “Wrestle with him.”

What’s your favorite thing to do with Mommy?  “Play with blocks.”

What’s your favorite toy?  “Megnadoodle”

What’s your favorite movie?  “Toy Tory Free”

What’s your favorite sport?  “Baseball”

Who’s your favorite football team?  “the green team”

Where’s your favorite place to go to?  “California and Disneyland”

What’s your favorite thing to do in California?  “sleep”

Tell me some people who you love?  “Chase and Carter, Daddy and you”

What’s your favorite song?  “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

What’s your favorite video game?  “Star Wars and Lego Batman”

Who’s your girlfriend?  “Breanna”

Who’s your favorite super hero?  “Spiderman”

What’s your favorite thing about Spiderman?  “He shoots webs”  (Followed by an awesome demonstration)

How big are your muscles?  “14”

What’s your favorite number?  “100”

What’s your favorite thing God made?  “My toys”

What’s your favorite animal?  “a little elephant”

What’s your favorite thing to do on the beach?  “Shovel in the sand”

What’s your favorite food?  “pizza”

“I’m done with my interview now, Mommy.”

Asher made me so proud this morning!  He wrote all the letters in the alphabet.  He’s pretty proud of himself too :).

I’m behind on the blog, I haven’t even talked about the walk yet, but I had to share this video of Asher encouraging his little pill taking friend, Maddie…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_faYzvfb9I0[/youtube]

I got to have a little date with Asher and his cutie cousin Gracie this weekend!  We went to Hale Theatre for the kids’ show, Cinderella.  Honestly, I thought it was pretty hokey.  But, every time I looked at the kids, they were chuckling and acting like this was the best show they’d ever seen, so what do I know!

The best show I’ve ever seen was watching the two of them tear up the water park across the street.  I wish I would have planned for swimming suits and towels, but they didn’t care.  They had so much fun!  I need to ask my friend whether or not it’s ok for them to swim in the actual water fountain part, ha!  I hope it’s ok.  Although, I’m not sure I could convince them otherwise, because they had so much fun pretending they were “taking a bath”.

Ok, so we’re taking a cue from American Idol :).

Total God story.  We have a sweet, older neighbor who we have befriended.  When I told him Asher has CF, he got misty-eyed, grabbed his heart, and told me he lost two grandchildren to CF.  He knows how horrible this disease is, and what it can do.  I’ve had the privilege of meeting his daughter, and she shares in our fight and our drive to find a cure.  She works at Build-A-Bear and has graciously donated to our Silent Auctions for the last couple of years.  I called her last year with an idea to put together some bags to give to children and parents who have been admitted into Phoenix Children’s Hospital.  She again, so graciously donated cuddly bears for boys, and “Princess” pillows for girls.  We were able to put together 12 bags of bears and pillows for little girls and boys, and we hope they will bring lots of smiles.  Our favorite nurse is in charge of handing out the smiles :).

On another CF note, our walk is on Sunday.  Sunday.  It’s the end of May.  Thankfully it’s been beautiful out, otherwise this is where I would insert lots of complaining, ha!  Anyways, we’re looking forward to getting together and telling the world that we need a cure!!!  If you’d like to join us, we’ll be walking on the 22nd at Tempe Beach Park.  It’s a 5k, and takes about 1.5 hours.  We qualified for a tent this year, so look for us, and come by 8:50a so you can be in the 2011 teamASHER photo!!!

On the third CF note, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation asked Asher and I to join them this last week to thank one of their sponsors of the Great Strides Walk.  They showed Asher’s video, and we thanked them for their support, and then Asher presented the Foundation with a check for over $12,600 from the Silent Auction!  I’m just realizing I somehow deleted the pictures I took of Asher giving the big check to Sheryl at the Foundation.  Nice!  Not really.  But, thankfully at least I took a cell phone pic to document the day.

On an entirely different note, we are making progress with the swimming lessons.  Asher is in the “Otter” class at EVO.  The first three weeks he screamed (pretty similar to last year), but this last week we had some major victories!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fFxuv9-btg[/youtube]

So, we found a new park!  Jeremy doesn’t think it’s that great, but I don’t think anyone gets to have an opinion unless they have an endless amount of hours they need to fill with happy kids and learning experiences :).  There is a huge lake, a big hill to walk up, and an office building with bathrooms and caged reptiles to look at (Jeremy took Asher, that part sounds terrible to me!).  It screams tired kids and calm afternoons, ha!  It’s on Chandler Heights and Lindsey if you want something to do!  Oh, and Asher is in to climbing trees now.  Fun, fun…for him, ha!

The super nice lady at As You Wish who donated to our Silent Auction also sent along a couple of free painting sessions and a gift card for me to take Asher.  So, we went to paint Daddy a new coffee mug, and the Grandmas a few things for Mother’s Day (Grandmas’, they’re in the mail now :)).  Asher LOVED painting!  And when we were ready to be done he said, “Wait, I want to make one for Miss Krista!”  So the fun continued.  Love that place.

Four months ago today we said goodbye to our sweet, Paxon.  Ugh.  We miss him so much.  We talked and thought about him a lot today.  Jeremy and I shared at a women’s ministries event at our church this morning.  Sharing today on the 4th made for a pretty emotional time.  I knew I was going to be nervous, and so last week I put together a few thoughts about our journey with Paxon, and thought I would share them here.  This really isn’t all-inclusive, and the story God is writing with all of our lives isn’t finished yet, but here are a few things we have learned from our Paxon Ray.

~ ~ ~

Jeremy and I have been asked to share with the women who attend Continuum next week.  I’m sitting here thinking about having to stand up front with hundreds of people watching us, listening to every word that comes out of our mouths, and I can barely contain my heart.  This is not my gig.  This is not my specialty.  This certainly is not something I’ve longed to do.  So this is God stretching me…again.  Thankfully Jeremy and I get to be together up there, and he is completely opposite of me, so he’ll be holding up the family name :).

How can we explain to everyone the joy and heartache and torment we’ve been through with Paxon?  It seems impossible.  It’s impossible to articulate the joy we felt in finding out we were pregnant after we had taken two years to pray about having more children, and the torment we shared in saying good-bye to our baby.  I know most people have thought about what it would be like to lose their child, and I have to tell you, it’s just as miserable and awful as you’ve imagined.  I feel like I’ve failed as a parent.  We’re supposed to love and protect our children, and we really didn’t get to do that.  We didn’t get to feed him because his body couldn’t handle real food.  We didn’t get to hold him much because of all the tubes.  We didn’t get to take him home because he was too weak.  We had so many plans and dreams for him, but it became really clear really quickly that we couldn’t stop the pain he was going through and our dreams were being crushed.  I ached to rip every tube and line off of his body and take him home, but that wasn’t going to happen.

Watching Paxon slowly slip away made God’s sovereignty real to me.  How Paxon was feeling, and what was being done to him was completely out of our hands.  It was agonizing.  Honestly, I was really wrestling with God’s sovereignty.  I never doubted that God was in control.  He is all powerful and all knowing.  But, these characteristics almost made things harder for me.  He could have healed my boy with a single word, but He chose not to.

Our days with Paxon really forced me to concentrate on a phrase our Pastor Tom has been telling us for years, “What we know about God needs to trump what we feel.”  We need to remember the truths we know about God, because our hearts are breaking over our empty arms.

The Bible says that all things work together for good for those who love Him.  This is really easy to say and believe when things are going well and life is good.  But, it’s extremely difficult to imagine that any good can come from losing your child.  Honestly, it seems messed up.  But it’s the truth, so we are forced to change our perspective and concentrate on what God may be teaching us through this.  Paxon was faced with a major heart surgery just days after he had died.  We’re thankful he didn’t have to go through that.  It is good that he didn’t have to.  After the doctors intubated him, he couldn’t coo or cry.  It is good that he is free of tubes and picc lines now.  Paxon was literally suffocating because his body could not get rid of the carbon dioxide.  It is very good that he doesn’t have to fight to breathe anymore.  We were hoping for more than 11 days to spend with our baby, but we’re grateful for the time we had because we know it could have been less.  Being chosen to be Paxon’s mommy and daddy was a privilege, and we’re so grateful the Lord let us call him ours.  I wish that we wouldn’t have had to go through losing our son to learn more about compassion and how to love, but it is good.  It is all good.  And, when we focus on the good, and the good that may still come from his life, we can breathe.  We are not consumed by fear.  And, we feel very loved by our God and Father.  We can turn towards our Father in heaven for comfort, for he understands what it’s like to watch your child suffer.

We can also have joy.  Joy because we know that God will redeem this for His glory, and our eternal happiness.  Joy because we trust that He will do something BIG with Paxon’s legacy.  Joy because we will not let Satan have any sort of victory in our suffering whatsoever.  Joy because we know that God is our Father in Heaven, and we will be with Him very, very soon.

Until that day, we will carry Paxon’s sweet memory forward.  We will not forget our boy, our love for him, and how he changed our lives.  We will never be the same because of our strong little fighter.  Thank you, God.

$8.00.  This is the amount that will get us through the Summer.  Thank you, Mr. Sprinkler.

Would anyone like to walk with us at the Great Strides Walk for Cystic Fibrosis on Sunday, May 22nd at 9:00a (registration starts at 8:00a)?!  I’m not going to lie, it’s going to be excruciatingly hot.  You will sweat.  You will be thirsty.  You will want it to be over as soon as you get out of the car.  And, you will more than likely hear me complain about the heat.  But, we would be so grateful and so honored to have your support (even if it is sweaty support :)).  We’ll be walking at Tempe Beach Park.  Let’s all meet at 8:50a so we can take a group photo!  You won’t be able to miss us, we have an obnoxiously large rainbow colored umbrella!  Let me know if you have any questions.  Follow the link below and click on “join my team” to walk with us…

Great Strides Walk Registration

Also, we’ll be collecting donations for teamASHER 2011 until May 22nd.  If you were not able to attend the auction, and you would like to donate to our team, follow this link below and click “click to donate”…

Donate to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in honor of teamASHER

We’re so thankful for everyone’s continued support of our family, and sharing in our passion for seeing a cure come to pass!!!

We had a great weekend celebrating Easter with our family and church family!

First, Mrs. Lorraine called to tell Asher that the Easter Bunny left some things for him in her backyard :).

Then, we had a wonderful church service outside, and Asher actually stood right by us the whole time.  Jeremy and I kept looking at each other because we were both thinking, “is this really happening?!”  It was a huge blessing.  Especially coming off of the Good Friday service where he was running like mad and chucking rocks everywhere, ha!

We had a great time celebrating Easter with our cousins!  We had an Easter barbecue, colored some eggs, and the Daddies hid a million eggs for the kids to find.

Asher was wore OUT on the ride home!  Look at this picture!  L.O.L!  Jeremy said he looks like Sloth, ha!

We had a little Easter Scavenger Hut with Asher to find his Easter Basket.  It was fun leaving little clues all over the house, and watching him hunt for his basket.  And, of course his basket had a new beesher in it…a water beesher at that!

Jeremy also had his very first baby dedication for our friends sweet girl, Andee.  It was really precious listening to Jeremy’s heart for the Lord and for children.

It was a great weekend!