Leaving with one less

Papers were signed and farewells were done. What do you do after that? We left the hospital. It was so late at night, only the street lights shined. The world was very quiet and very much changed forever for us. We left with a bag of DJ's belongings and with one less child. DJ's new skateboard shoes and his favorite t-shirt in the bag--his shirt that said "Skateboarders who love Jesus" -that was all we got to take home---that sucked!! No child, no boy with flowing hair and beautiful green eyes, just a bag of belongings. We went into the hospital as a family of 5 and left as a family of 4. My husband held the hand of my daughter and I held the hand of our youngest son. For so long we had been a family of five, for so long we had been complete and now we were incomplete, lacking the boy that made everything connect. It felt like forever being in that hospital but in a split second we were down to four.