The doors have closed.

Sitting with my Travis on Friday, for what was supposed to be his adoption “Gotcha Day” celebration, a very solemn look came over him. I watched him look down, then off to a distant place that doesn’t even exist. It’s a look I recognized, I’ve gazed off to it a thousand times since my baby passed.

Travis asked quietly: “Have the doors closed?”

My fiance and I looked at each other puzzled. What doors? We looked at the patio tables adjoining our indoor seating — the doors remained wide open.

“No? They haven’t closed any doors…?” I responded, albeit a little confused.

Travis was frustrated. My answer was wrong.

“What doors?” I asked.

“Nevermind,” he said quietly

But I pushed. I knew something was up.

“What doors, Travis?”

Quietly, barely audible, he asked if his brother had been cremated yet.

He’s at a celebration dinner and worrying about whether his brother has yet been reduced to ashes.

Tears began to flow.

That’s when it hit me. He must have heard me talking to the mortuary earlier that day. Through tears, I asked them to call me once his body was gone. It didn’t matter to me at what point they called: “I don’t care if you wait until he’s done or call once the doors close behind him…” I said through tears. Seeing as how I was crying and barely intelligible, I had to repeat myself a few times. I didn’t realize he had heard me.

Travis was also waiting for the doors to close.

This, right now, more than any time yet, I’ve wanted to stomp my feet and cry and throw something. Never in my life have I felt the physical desire to throw something against a wall just to see it shatter. I want to feel it leave my hands, I want to see it break into a million pieces, I want to hear a crash. Somewhere deep inside it seems like that should help. Something should break because I am so broken, my baby is broken. My precious little boy’s adorable skinny, little, bendy body being reduced to ashes.

I’m going to vomit.

But I’ve needed to know when the doors close. For the last four days I’ve held my breath, panicked every time the phone rang waiting for “the call.”

We all have our moments in the process we mark as the turning point. For Travis, it’s Tanner’s Celebration of Life. That’s when it’ll be real for him.

This is my moment. This is when it’s truly final, truly real. This is the moment I can stop fighting the urge to run hold his hand just one more time.

This is when my baby is gone.

Oh, my Tanner, I love you more today than yesterday.

It’s true.

And herein lies one of the crueler realities of death.

Love multiplies in grief. The greater the love, the greater the grief; the greater the grief, the greater the love.

Before losing Tanner, I don’t think I could have comprehended how a love can grow after a child dies. I could easily believe the level of love never diminishes, but to actually suggest it grows seems illogical. Moms already believe we have an undeniable, incomparable love that could never be rivaled.

But it can.

I think you love greater in death.

This isn’t to take away or diminish a mother’s love — it just takes something that couldn’t possible be greater and magnifies it by about one thousand.

Think about the person you love very most in your world. It’s fair to say that most moms think about their kids numerous times throughout the day. Depending on the age, some more, some less. But most moms will also have periods of 10, 15, 30, 90, 120 minutes (or even entire school days) where you might not think about your children. We get busy with work, workouts, lunch with friends, housework and go about our business while our kids go about theirs. Even picking a toy up off the floor is just a toy being picked up off the floor.

And then you lose your baby.

Every waking second, every glance, every breath, every heartbeat, every single thing I see and the empty space between them is a reminder of the love I hold for a child that is no longer here.

In the still moments my mind races to thoughts of him. Every corner of my home reminds me of my baby and something cute or silly he did. A toy on the floor is not just a toy, but a memory of what was and what will never be again.

In all of those other moments he is there too. There is music everywhere you go and with every beat I hear I can picture that glimmer in his eye as his body starts to absorb it, then the toe begins to tap and the shoulder starts to bounce, and before long he’s dancing with the lady who just happened to be sitting next to him. The random child waving from the grocery cart next to me, every store, every street, every food, every everything reminds me of him and my love for him.

Part of grief is also fighting a vicious mental game of everything I failed to do for him and my mind swirls on ways I could have loved him purer, harder or better. I can’t say I ever lost sleep in Tanner’s living years trying to figure out how I could have loved him better. I just loved and it always seemed good enough.

I wrestle with crazy far-fetched ideas of what I wouldn’t give to save him — my life for his — no question. We all think we would give our lives for our kids, but until you’re in that moment of wishing they would take your heart so his could continue, it’s not real. It’s in those moments that love feels truly tested.

In death I think you become far more conscious of the love you hold for your child; it becomes more real, more present, more creative, more consuming.

And with my every breath’s inhale I remember my Tanner, the exhale I am reminded he’s gone.

I love him more with every passing moment. I miss him more with every passing day. So much more love. So much more pain.

And so it is, that when the call came today, I broke.

The doors have closed…

On his life.

On my chance to ever touch him again.

On my life as I knew it.

On the crematorium.

For the first time since his death, I fell asleep sobbing. I don’t remember drifting off, just crying my most broken tears and waking up an hour later.

So I sit here writing. I will admit that I haven’t felt God’s presence much the last week. There’s been too much pain and I’ve shut myself off from much of everything. But He was here today… and so was Tanner.

Just a few minutes ago, as I was writing my final thoughts to this post the ice cream truck came down the street and I had to just almost laugh.

It wasn’t playing its usual Christmas carols.

It wasn’t playing any of the standard kids’ tunes.

No, this time it was playing the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Tanner loved military music and especially this song. I can picture him marching to it as the chorus repeated before it went out of range…

Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

The doors have closed.

But one day Heaven’s gates will open. And I WILL see my baby again.

It is His truth, His promise. Hallelujah.

My sweet Tanner-man, mommy loves you… more than I could ever imagine and more every single day! I can’t wait to see you again and hug you and touch your perfectly healed body. I can’t wait to hold your hand. Dance for the angels sweet baby, and just today… show them how well you march!