\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a92004 Jediah Logiodice\n<\/p>\n
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
There he was, laying in his bed, a frail little boy of only 3. It’s amazing how circumstances sometimes require a child to grow quicker than their years.\n<\/p>\n
And here he was \u2013 my little boy \u2013 all grown up at 3 years old.\n<\/p>\n
He understood the whole meaning of his life \u2013 which doctors speculated would last only a few more weeks.\n<\/p>\n
Every time I saw him I longed to take him in my arms and hold him forever.\n<\/p>\n
I’ve never been able to shake the pain, the thought that I failed him.\n<\/p>\n
I remember how I used to hold him at night and whisper in his ear that nothing bad would ever happen to him as long as I was around, that I would always protect him.\n<\/p>\n
But you can’t protect them from everything, you know, no matter how I had tried; I could not keep death from coming to his little life.\n<\/p>\n
How much I felt I had failed him.\n<\/p>\n
It’s hard to keep your faith in God when you go through trials like this.\n<\/p>\n
I remember the day we sat together, I stared as his precious little face, soft and serene, and Andrew looked up at me and said, “Papa, I’ll give Jesus a hug and tell him that you love him still.”\n<\/p>\n
The tears rushed from my eyes, and I collapsed on his bed beside him and held him as close to my face as I could. I laid there weeping uncontrollably, and he ran his hands over my head and whispered \u2013 “Shhh \u2013its ok, papa, its ok.”\n<\/p>\n
Sometimes he seemed all grown up.\n<\/p>\n
On the day Andrew left, I had one last glimpse of the simple inner beauty that God had bestowed upon him.\n<\/p>\n
It had been hours, we had sat there, together, holding his fragile little hand.\n<\/p>\n
He had slowly turned his head toward me and inquired, “Papa, where is the sweet by and by”?\n<\/p>\n
“What do you mean, Andrew”, I asked?\n<\/p>\n
“You know, like in the song, it says ‘In the sweet by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore'”.\n<\/p>\n
“Oh”, I said, once again welling up, “that means in a little while we’ll meet in heaven”.\n<\/p>\n
“Oh” was all he said. He was silent for a long time afterwards.\n<\/p>\n
But those last words he said to me before he ebbed away was; “Papa \u2013 I’ll see you by and by”.\n<\/p>\n
That was almost 15 years ago.\n<\/p>\n
It’s funny how some memories remain so vivid.\n<\/p>\n
I can remember everything about that day. What I ate for breakfast, what I wore, even down to the color of Andrew’s socks.\n<\/p>\n
Time slips on, but memories like that never fade.\n<\/p>\n
Even to this day, when I think of my little boy, I lose yet again another part of me \u2013 leaving me feeling just a little bit more cold and empty inside.\n<\/p>\n
But, the time did come when I could talk to Jesus again, and I got down on my knees buried my head in my hands, and through silent tears I said, “Jesus, Andrew was right, I do still love you, but please give him a hug for me, and tell him that I miss him awfully.”\n<\/p>\n
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\u00a0 \u00a92004 Jediah Logiodice \u00a0 There he was, laying in his bed, a frail little boy of only 3. It’s amazing how circumstances sometimes require a child to grow quicker than their years. And here he was \u2013 my little boy \u2013 all grown up at 3 years old. He understood the whole meaning of … Continue reading “One of my Short Stories”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-short-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darthjedi.logiodice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darthjedi.logiodice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darthjedi.logiodice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darthjedi.logiodice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darthjedi.logiodice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/darthjedi.logiodice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darthjedi.logiodice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darthjedi.logiodice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darthjedi.logiodice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}