If you have read Paxton’s story on this site, than you already have some idea of how amazing this little boy was. If you haven’t, then go back and read it. It’s ok. I’ll wait.
<waiting> *whistles, checks Twitter* </waiting>
I KNOW RIGHT?!?!?!?! Cutest little dude ever! Told you.
So, if you talk to anyone who has met him, you’ll hear the stories of how he had a way of wrapping people around his finger with one look and a sly smile. (He also had a way of wrapping his little fingers around his mama’s. Just like a teeny tiny vice grip, but I digress.) They’ll tell you that he had an old, wise soul. That there was just *something* about this kid. (I’m not kidding. Everyone said this!) He was a very alert infant right from the start, always taking everything in. When you looked at him or talked to him, he gazed right back, focusing on you. This tiny little guy could make you feel like he liked you best. Then he’d hang out with someone else, and they would swear he liked them best. Paxton Andrews was a special boy. Everyone around him could feel it. And he was loved. So loved.
When he began his battle with cancer, he took on the surgeries and chemotherapy like a champion. His body was able to take so much on, even though he was just a baby. He was unbelievably strong. He was unwaveringly sweet. He had more grace at three months than most humans will have in their whole lives. He taught me that, no matter how long your time on Earth, no matter how small you are, you can have, within you, the kind of courage that can change hearts. The kind of inspiration that can change lives. Paxton Andrews showed me that the unique and beautiful “something” inside all of us, that thing that makes us special, that thing that guides our hearts, is something that never dies.
Today, Paxton is no longer with us. Today, the pain of losing such a precious baby boy is raw and terrible. Today, we feel angry. We scream out, “WHY?” We cry softly at night, thinking about how things could have been, how they should have been. Today feels broken. Today hurts like hell.
Tomorrow, I will get out of bed at 6 o’clock as usual. Tomorrow, I will think of how such great strength came from such a tiny boy. I’ll touch his photo and tell him that I’ll try to be that strong. Tomorrow I’ll think of the smile he gave his daddy for his birthday, even after a week of inpatient treatment. Tomorrow, I will hear more stories from people that have been so moved by him, inspired by him, forever changed by him. Most of those people will have never met him. Tomorrow, I will do one-more-thing to help stop this insidious, cruel disease from stealing children out of their parent’s arms. And I will do the same the next day, and the day after that, and all of the tomorrows I have left.
I believe that one day I will meet Paxton Andrews in some other place. I don’t really know how all of that works. I don’t know how we change or where we go. I do know that, somehow, I will know that it’s him. I will thank him. I will tell him about all of the things I did with all of the tomorrows I had. I will tell him that he was the spark that woke up a place in my heart that had gotten weary over time.
I will tell him these things, wanting him to understand that, in 142 days on Earth, he inspired more people than most people manage to do in a lifetime. I will tell him how we never, ever, forgot about him. I will tell him that we built an army in his honor. I’ll tell him how he managed miracles, even after he left.
And he’ll already know. I imagine I’ll feel him look back at me and smile. And I’ll smile, because he’ll make me feel that he likes me best, too.
Here we go little buddy, we’re going to make you proud. We’re going to shine a light so bright, that, wherever you are, you’ll see us. And without a doubt, you’ll know that…
…we loved you best.
xoxo
Sara
