Six years ago (in May), my big brother passed from this life into the next. He was 25. He simply went to sleep and opened his eyes in Heaven. For six years, my family has attempted to process this immense grief.
Isaac and I had been married four months when I graduated from university. It just so happened that God led both of my brothers to attend the same university while I was there. The rest of our family came to celebrate my graduation. The plan was my graduation in 2016, Matthew’s in 2017, and our older brother, Benjamin’s graduation in 2018. We attended the same university backwards to our birth order, which only made life even more interesting, as we usually made it.
April 2016 arrived, and with my graduation came the last time I would see Matthew this side of Heaven. He passed suddenly in May, and our family changed forever.
February 20th was Matthew’s birthday. He loved birthdays. He always wanted to be older than he was, to plan something special, and he always—without fail—spent his birthday money in his mind before he was even given it. He always knew exactly what he would buy, and he had his mind set on it for months in advance.
Years have passed, and while the grief of losing Matthew is not as raw, it still stings. Birthdays pass and as I reached 25, I realized I was no longer his “little sister”. You can only imagine the pain that brought.
In 2019, though, God blessed us with our sweet son. This boy has been prayed for and was such an answer to the prayers I’ve prayed since I was a young girl. He made his very quick entrance into the world on August 20th, and celebrated his six month birthday on—you guessed it—February 20th, his Uncle Matthew’s birthday.
While we’ve never celebrated half birthdays in our family, it felt as though it was a perfect opportunity for us to bring a little happiness into a sad day. So, every half-birthday, we celebrate Samuel’s life and Matthew’s, too. Samuel will grow up hearing the stories of his silly uncle, and I pray he will feel a connection to him in some way. I know he would have loved to know him.
Today, Samuel turned 2.5. In his first year, I did monthly updates of all he had learned and how he had grown, but since then, I haven’t. It was time to write an update of all his milestones to look back on some day. Below is a glimpse of Samuel Alan at age 2.5. What a joy he is to us!
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He has alphabet flash cards and can name all the letters (though W is often “DUB!”)
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He can count from 1-20, and loves counting backwards. When he watches a show that’s skip counting, he can follow along and count by 10s. He always announces “I count!” and “I DID IT! YAY!”.
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He absolutely LOVES church and singing as loud as possible during worship. He raises his hand when he sees others praising God.
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He’s obsessed with his Nee Nee and Gee Gee (Nanny & Grampy). He wakes up each morning, looks across the road to their house, and says, “Nee Nee! I go!”. He usually gets his boots on and shows mama he’s ready to go. He loves sitting on Gee Gee’s lap and sharing snacks while watching sports.
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He usually cries with his bottom lip down when Daddy works night shift now. He misses his “Daddo” and loves to play with him (it breaks Daddo’s heart).
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He loves watching Blue’s Clues lately. When he wants to watch something, he says “a SHOW!” but his little voice makes us laugh every single time.
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He now says, “I oh you” for “I love you”. There’s nothing sweeter than hearing “I oh you, Mama”.
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He calls our cat “Kitty No No” because she’s almost always getting into something. He scolds her, then says “ohh kitty…” and hugs & kisses her. She isn’t quite sure about this kid.
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He absolutely loves trucks and construction vehicles and sleeps with three, hard plastic trucks each night (so comfortable… right?).
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He’s very particular about playing with his toys. He lines his cars up in a row, all facing the same direction. He gets very frustrated when things aren’t in place the way he feels they should be.
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He knows his basic shapes, and makes each shape using his hands. Hearing him pronounce each shape’s name makes me giggle. I pray I never forget his little voice at this age.
And finally, being his mama is quite honestly the best gift I’ve ever been given. I have no words to describe how thankful I am. Happy half-birthday, sweet boy. You are my treasure.
