The holidays are here, but we are feeling anything BUT joyful ...

A year ago this past August, our son, Sequoyah Hudson, passed away; he died in a drowning accident.  He was only two.  He would have been three on Thanksgiving Day, which was just three days ago.

There isn't a day where we don't think of him.  

Christmas seems to be the hardest time because Sequoyah LOVED Christmas.  He loved the twinkling lights and the smell of fresh pine, hot cinnamon tea, chestnuts roasting over a hot fire, and the sounds of the choir singing at church.  

Sequoyah had special needs.  He had Down syndrome and was mentally disabled, but he knew how to love and give love to others.  He was always laughing, always smiling; there were not very many days where he wasn't happy.  He loved to play and run around as any other little boy would do and he loved being held or read to.

Sequoyah had several major heart surgeries (one when he was ten days old and two more at the ages of one year and two and a half).  The times he spent in the hospital were the most difficult we, as his parents, had ever faced, but somehow, some way, God got us through the worst of it, and our son emerged, pink, healthy, happy, whole.  It was nothing short of a miracle.

Then came the accident.  August 15th, 2010.   He was swimming with some friends at the lake when he ran too far out and went under.  By the time someone realized he was missing, it was too late.  A half hour after Sequoyah Hudson had gone missing, life guards pulled his body from the water.  He was already gone.  It was the worst possible thing to happen to us.  We were numb with grief and shock.

We barely remember the details of the funeral or the weeks and first few months after he died; we are just starting to come back and try to pick up the pieces of our shattered lives.  

All we know is this: our lives will never be the same.  We never expected to lose our little boy like this.  Now that Chrismas/the holidays are here, there are only reminders of what our precious little boy loved and enjoyed.

We should be enjoying time with family and friends, buying each other presents, and going to church to sing the carols, but all we can do is stay home and reflect on what was taken from us a little over a year ago.  We miss little Sequoyah Hudson more now than ever.  All we would like for Christmas is for him to come back to life, although we know that this isn't possible.

Pray for us; pray we get through what is supposed to be a joyous time of year because our world as we knew it has ended and there isn't anything worth celebrating in our lives!