Making you uncomfortable?

This might come as a surprise or a shock to you but this picture of Gavyn is one of my favorites. Not just one of the favorites from his stay in the hospital either, just one of my favorite pictures of him. One of the walls in our family room has a bunch of frames that I change the pictures out of periodically. Two of the frames are 8x10's and I just got two pictures of Gavyn printed and put them in the frames, this picture is one of them. To me it was natural to print the picture and frame it. Honestly, when I went to get pictures ready I knew immediately that this picture was one of them, it was the second picture that took some time to pick out. It never occurred to me that it would be odd to frame this picture. Yet I wonder if it makes others uncomfortable (not that I would ever take the picture down). We have had people over to the house and when they look at our pictures people comment on every or any picture but this one. It struck me the other day that maybe they found it odd, isn't that something you want to not think about? For me it is such a big part of his life and something that is not just going to go away. It is part of his life story, our family history, and something that will be close to our hearts and minds for a long time. I know a time will come when this all seems like a distant memory but I also know that it could be years before my thoughts do not frequently go there. He is my little miracle and what a story he has to tell. This picture for instance...

The day this picture was taken sucked. Down right sucked and I hated it. In my last post I talked about the day we took many steps back, this was that day. Early that morning was when Gav could not breath on his own again and the breathing tube was put back in. The night before I had been able to hold him for 2 hours and when I arrived that morning the breathing tube was back in. The worst part about a breathing tube is that you are not allowed to hold your baby. I had no idea how long it would be before I could hold him again. This was right before the external shunt was put it. He had such a terrible time keeping his temp. up and when he would get cold his heart rate would drop. At first he was in one of the little baby cribs that has a heater in it but the doc wanted him to be more elevated so they put him in a big boy crib. There was of course no heater so they brought in heat lamps, thus the lighting. One of the nurses went and found these sun glasses for him so that his eyes would not be hurt. It is the only time I remember laughing when he was in the PICU. We just all laughed out loud because he was so cute! He looked calm, chill, just tanning on vacation. It felt normal. Something cute of your newborn and you take a picture for the scrapbook, the picture frame, send it to the relatives over e-mail. It was a small present before all hell broke out and I thought that I would lose him.

There are all these stories that have a feeling of needing to be told. And how many lives will he touch, will I touch, that relate back to these times that no one will know about?