Our Beloved Son's 3rd Birthday

Today is our beloved Jonathan David's 3rd birthday. We are thinking of our first born today, missing him, loving him, thanking God for his precious life... As a tribute to him, we thought we would post what Jonny spoke at his memorial service on February 3rd, 2007. Many of you who are now reading this blog didn't even know us then, and so by sharing this with you today, you will get to know us more and our precious first son. The words Jonny spoke on that day still ring very true to us. But thankfully, the pain and grief have greatly diminished and we have experienced joy again. Thank you for remembering him with us today...

"Thank you everyone for joining us today to remember our son and join us in our sadness. We wanted all of you to meet him and I wish that we could have shared many more events such as birthdays and graduations with you. So many of you have helped or offered to help in countless practical ways, for which we are deeply grateful, but it is your presence here today that comforts us the most and we feel so blessed to have such a wonderful collection of family and friends with us here.

Jonathan David was not in this world for very long, but he has shaped our lives forever and will always be in our hearts. I hope you could see this in the video Ana put together but I also wanted to say a few words as even though it is often said that a picture can say a thousand words, sometimes there are words that have meanings deeper than any image can capture.

Time for example. Seconds, minutes, hours, years: we love to measure time but these quantities do not reflect the differing values that each moment has. Have you ever been stuck in a traffic jam and sat in your car for 2 hours for a journey that should have taken 20 minutes? 2 hours can feel like an eternity. Or have you ever spent 2 hours on the telephone with a loved one and not even realized where the time went? 2 hours can feel like the blink of an eye. For our son, 2 hours was a lifetime. He was born on Tuesday night at 9:01pm but his heart stopped at 10:49pm. We cherished every second of that time. He was tall, thin and beautiful. He had long fingers like his mum and peanut toes on his feet like me. We held him, kissed him and loved him every second. 2 hours is too short for a lifetime. We miss him.

But we knew Jonathan David for a lot longer than 2 hours. For over 34 weeks he grew and developed in Ana’s womb. She first felt him move at 18 weeks, when he gave his mama a good kick, and I first felt him move a few weeks later. We had lots of fun trying to figure out what part of his body we were touching, following his hiccups and every single move. He was very active and really enjoyed his time in there. Particularly in the mornings I would hold Ana’s stomach and feel him jump all around while his mama slept soundly! Of course he did have the most wonderful mum, Ana treasured him and loved him with all her heart and looked after him very well. Especially regarding food – Jonathan David, or so Ana told me, had a very big appetite!

Our happiness though was always tinged with sadness as we learned at 12 weeks from an ultrasound that Jonathan David had trisomy 13. For many people, this defined who he was. But he was a life as precious as any, and to us more precious than anything. Parents are meant to teach their children about life, but in our case, it was our son who did all the teaching. When I first learned about Jonathan’s condition, and that he would be unlikely to live long after birth if he even made it that far, I thought to myself – this is bad, but it could be worse… If he were to live a long time but always be totally dependent on us, that would mean sacrifices I would rather not make. The Bible says that love is not selfish. How selfish I was. But as the pregnancy went on all I wanted to do was be able to look after him. After he was born, the thought went through my mind that I wished I could look after him forever, no matter what sacrifices it would mean on our part. However this too was selfish. It was his time to go and I wanted to hold onto him for my sake. He belonged to God and was only ours to look after for a while.

His most important lesson for us was that there is a time for everything. There is a time to be born and a time to die. In Psalm 139 we read how all the days ordained for us have been written in God’s book, before one of them came to be. It was his time to go, and he was at peace. He did not even shed any tears. He only took a few breaths, and those I think were mainly for us as we found it hard to let go of him. But he did not struggle or hold onto this world as we do. We had hoped and prayed for a miracle everyday, and I know that people all over the world, including many of you here today did so as well. But it was his time. He knew that this life is just a breath and that we are just dust. We live in a fallen and decaying world. The beautiful flowers that many of you sent us will all fall, as will the flowers here today. Flowers are so beautiful. I did not realize how much I loved flowers until today - but how quickly they die. And we too will all die, as will the stars, as will the Earth. Jonathan David had an appointment with the eternal to keep, and he was not going to be late. He had an appointment with Jesus who said “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven”. During his time on Earth, Jesus is described as a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He endured these things so that we can look forward to the promise of new life and new bodies in the new Heaven and the new Earth where there will be no more tears or sadness.

But for now, we miss little Jonathan deeply. He has been such a huge part of our lives for the 34 weeks and 5 days he lived in Ana’s womb and for the 2 hours he lived after being born. And he will always be a part of our life.

Jonathan David my son, we love you, and so do all our friends and family. We hope that we will make you proud of us in the days that we have remaining, and then we will see you again. Our time with you was short but it was full of love and moments that we will always treasure. It was an honor for us to be your parents and you were our perfect son.

Thank you all once again for joining us here today, to mourn with us but also to look back on Jonathan’s life with us – I know that he was precious to many of you here and I am sure that he knows this too."