Knox turns 7

  I was just thinking that I know a day will come when I don't blog about Knox's birthday.  I don't know when that will happen, but it will, and it will be another first. This year already was different. It was the first year we haven't all been together on his birthday.  Jon was gone most of the day after being out of town for several days, and Elizabeth is with another family on a trip to help with their children.  It is one of those things you know is going to happen; it is unreasonable to expect that for the rest of my life, everyone is going to be together on that day. We had a busy day and that coupled with not everyone being here, for the first time we didnt' all go to the park to release balloons and eat cake made with Knox sprinkles (I'll explain in another post), Knox style.  Thanks to friend, the kids did release balloons. :-)  Also, I tried not to go to sonic but Janey Kate and I did anyway. 
    As I talked about in April, this year being the 5th year after his accident made it so all the dates were the same.  That first birthday without him (his 2nd), was on a Saturday as well and just like today, we had soccer games or a soccer game anyway.  I looked back on my knoxmemories blog to see what I had written about his birthday then to see how it compares to now.  This is what I wrote:

Matthew Knox Anderson
October 27, 2005- April 23, 2007
    Wonder how you get through a day like that?  It is actually quite simple though not easy.  You breathe in.  You breathe out.  The sun rises.  The sunsets. And you know that God's mercies are new every morning.
     I know it probably seems weird to be writing this now over a week later, but I had to put some distance from the day as it truly was one of the most difficult of my life.  I was feeling pretty sorry for us which I think is rather reasonable.  It is getting to the point where soon it is going to be difficult to imagine what he would be like if he had lived.  I know what he was like at 18 months; I don't know what he would have been like at 2.  I don't know what the terrible(or terrific ) two's would have been like as we hadn't gotten there yet.  But still, it was hard not to think about how he should be here on that day just like any other day.  He should have gone to the soccer field with us to watch Anne Michal play.  I should have been running after him and pulling him off the field as usual.  We should have had a little party with friends to watch him open presents and share cake and ice cream. He should have been clapping his hands, giggling, and trying to sing Happy Birthday.  Kind of hard not to think about what should have been while agonizing over what it.
   Jon and I didn't know what to do that day so we let the kids decide.  They wanted to go to the park and make a cake.  I didn't really want to, but like my friend told me...you do it like you do everything else...purposefully.  Like I said above...breathe in....breathe out....you get the picture.  I really didn't see that we had anything to celebrate.  At some point in the morning, I checked the people's blogs I read to find several birthday messages.  On Matt's blog,(you'll have to scroll down since it has been a while)  he said something about today we celebrate the second anniversary of Knox's birth. That gave me a new way to look at it.  I still didn't want to celebrate, but it helped because his birth is worth a celebration as we still thank God every day for giving him to us.  So thanks Matt for that bit of perspective.
That is really the main thing I wanted to say...that took me 3 paragraphs...heehee.  In order to finish out the day, we did go to the park where of course someone was having a birthday party.  At least he was 7 and not 2!!  The kids played on the playground and I played soccer with them some.  Hannah and Marian came over with the quilt and books and a cake(which got me off the hook for making one...thank you!!!)as I have already written about.  That was one of those good/hard things.  We loved it all, but we wished we weren't in the situation to have that done.  Then we went to sonic and got some lunch to take to the soccer field like we had eaten on the day he was born...regretted it as usual and like that day.   We watched Anne Michal play soccer.  I am sure people wondered what in the world was wrong with me....Anyway, after that it was home for the rest of the day.  I had a terrible headache and spent the rest of the day laying down, breathing in and breathing out and waiting for the sun to set.  And guess what? It did.  Just like it does everyday.

    It was definitely an easier day.  It was still hard to go to bed last night knowing what I was going to wake up to and still hard to go to bed tonight knowing what is going to end.  I woke up with a headache and immediately remembered the headache I had that day.  I still cried a little at soccer wondering if he'd be a soccer player too. Hard to imagine he wouldn't have.  A little irony there that the little boy at the park was turning 7 since that is what Knox would be turning now. I can, now, better celebrate his birth and his life; no matter how short, we were are so blessed by it and have been shaped and molded by it. I still sometimes just have to breathe in and breathe out and wait for the sun to set and the sun to rise.  His mercies are still new every morning.

   Some time recently it hit me that I no longer see him as an 18 month old.  I talked about in that blog entry about not knowing what he looked like any more and how hard that was.  I find it interesting that while I have always wondered what he'd be like and have grieved not knowing him as a older toddler, a preschooler, and now a lower grammar student, I'd still picture him primarily as a toddler.  I no longer do.  I wish I was an artist so I could draw him as I see him.  Tall, like Jack, maybe even almost as tall.  All arms and legs, also like Jack but not quite so skinny, but not as solid as Creed.  I see him as somewhere in the middle of the two.  The same bright blue eyes he always had and a shock of blonde hair cut close like Jack's but blonder like Creed's.  I see him as studious, but fun-loving and even though he'd be the middle brother, he'd be the ring leader of the three and lead them on grand adventures as Creed would say.  Of course, this is all hypothetical, and that is very painful but it also makes me smile to think of him this way.

    I am going to bed tonight looking forward to the sun rising, His mercies being new every morning and feasting at the Kings Table with my church family, praising our Good God with all the saints that have gone before us including Knox!