Big Brothers

While Monday was an excruciating day in most respects, our two other sons were there to brighten the mood.  Cael and Liam (6 and 4) have been eagerly awaiting the birth of their brother for months.  Since we named him a few months ago, Ephraim, "Little E", has been a daily part of our family.  They have prayed for him and nightly thanked God for his life.  Ephraim was a very active child in the womb and they would feel him kick and hiccup. 

A few weeks ago we were playing around with his name and found it fit very well into the song "Freeze-Frame" by The J. Geils Band.  Our family has been substituting "Ephraim" into the song and singing and playing the song.  (You can thank me now that the song will be in your head!)

During the pregnancy and when we would go for the frequent doctors visits we would remind the boys that we weren't sure what was going to happen with his life.  Cael would say every couple weeks, "I hope Ephraim makes it," to which we said, "We do too," so this is not a total surprise. 

When we received word from the NICU doctor that he would be on comfort care, we invited the boys in to meet their brother.  Now, the medical staff had told us that the siblings of a child with birth defects will not recognize the brother as having anything wrong but simply as their brother.  It was fascinating to watch the boys examine their brother and not realize the gravity of the situation even though there was a nurse helping him breathe for his entire life.  Nevertheless, the boys took their time to do a full examination checking and counting the fingers and toes, looking for a cleft chin and removing the diaper to make sure he was a boy.  Then Cael stuck Ephraim's toe up his nose just for fun saying, "Ephraim's picking my nose!"

After he passed we let the boys know who began to process it in their own way.  We told them he went to heaven to be with Jesus and God had given him a free pass to heaven.  Cael said, "When I get to heaven, I'm going to be his older brother." Upon hearing this, Liam's eyes lit up and he said, "And I'm going to be his older brother in heaven too!" excited that however short Little E's life was, Liam is now an older sibling.  Then Cael added, "When I get to heaven, I'm going to stick Ephaim's head in the toilet and flush it!"  Ahhh, brothers!