Christian, My Son: What God Spoke after the Death of My Child

By S.M. Alvarez

“As I sat in prayer, through tears and anguish and bitterness of soul, He was with me. He too will be with You if You acknowledge Jesus as Your Savior. This story is God’s story. He is the author of my life and though I would like to choose to write things differently, I trust Him.”

Christian, My Son takes you through the journey of one woman’s immense grieving over the loss of her only son, Christian, and everything that God spoke to her during that time. From the day of her son's tragic passing to over a year after his death, she chronicles how God spoke to her each step of the way in her grieving. Taken through moments of hope and encouragement, to times of defeat and exhaustion, she shares how God was there through it all and taught her many great truths. There were questions. There were answers. There were many occasions of despair but also numerous incidents of being challenged to live out the faith she believed in.

The author shares candidly about the thoughts and feelings she experienced after the loss of her beloved son and includes real journal entries in hopes that other hurting hearts will know they are not alone in what they may be feeling. Based on the truths of God found in the Bible, this true story offers comfort to readers, that there is a hope and a future for those who choose to seek after Jesus. Christian, My Son is an emotional read, but one full of truth and hope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098089337

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Day You Went Home

For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s

womb. I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.

My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret,

And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in

Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me,

When as yet there were none of them.

(Psalm 139:13–16 NKJV)

It was a beautiful and sunny day. The light of the warm sun shone through the windows and the busy morning of a typical Sunday in our household was in full swing. The cartoons on our living room television were blasting with laughter and silly noises as our daughter Gracie ran around the house playing. She usually woke up before Christian so I had already given her a bath and put her in her pretty Sunday church clothes. Happy and fresh with the fragrance of baby lotion, she followed me into Christian’s room to help me wake him up.

Goooooonie, my voice rang out. It’s time to get up son. We have to get you ready for church! I opened up both of his blinds the way I did every morning to let in the sunshine and start the process of waking up. He lay sleepily in his bed and began to stretch his skinny little body as his eyes remained closed. I can still see his precious face and the way he would pout his pretty lips; I had seen him do it so many times before. How was I to know this would be the last time? Giving him a little time to wake up, I lead Gracie to the living room and put her in her high chair to eat some breakfast while I headed back to Christian’s room to pick his clothes for the day.

I opted for a royal blue onesie with matching plaid shorts and pulled out a pair of socks from his top drawer, white ones with a royal blue stripe at the top and royal blue on the toes and ball of the feet. He always looked so cute in those even though the socks were somewhat big for his narrow little feet. I grabbed the other things I needed to get him ready: his brush, his lotion, and of course, a bath towel. The bath towel was a soft blue towel that I had used often for him. I remember in the midst of a busy morning I almost asked my husband to give him a bath that day. I’m so thankful I didn’t. This would be the only time I got to spend with Christian, just the two of us. By the grace of God, He let me spend this time with him.

I put all the stuff on our bed in our room where I always got the kids ready after their baths and I went into his room to pick him up. Daddy was in the shower already and had filled Christian’s bath with warm water and it was ready and waiting for us on the counter of our bathroom. It was a pretty huge toddler bathtub, the kind you can put on any stable surface and bathe your kids in it. And since Christian was small for his age and still fit in it, we still used it.

As I went into his room for the last time to pick him up, he was awake and ready to get out of bed. He tossed and turned with excitement like he always did when the morning came and it was time to get up. Being that the nights were usually hard for him to sleep through, he welcomed the morning and was always so happy to see me come in to pick him up. Time for your bath, Boogie! I took off his pajamas and threw them aside on the floor, scooped him up, and headed toward the bath in a hurry since we were beginning to get a little behind on schedule. Then I quickly put him in the toddler bathtub and began to wash him.

Christian had always been such a gentle boy, calm and easy going. Though he had endured countless doctor appointments and tests, three surgeries, and medical issues that ranged from insomnia, scoliosis, strabismus, epilepsy, and the inability to sit, walk, or talk, he remained full of joy and maintained a vibrant and peaceful spirit. It was just like my boy not to mind the hurriedness of Mom taking him out of bed straight into bath time. His eyes look so good today! I told my husband Chris as he showered behind us. Christian had been struggling to keep his eyes straight for several days because of his strabismus but today his eyes looked perfectly straight at me. (For those of you who are not aware of what strabismus is, it is the misalignment of the eyes, either inward or outward. In my son’s case, it was an inward misalignment, also called esotropia.)

I stopped to stare into his eyes. They were so beautiful, wide-eyed, and full of innocence. As I bathed Christian, something came to mind that I had read in a book I had just borrowed from the Center for Developing Kids where he received his physical therapy. It was a book covering a wide range of topics that involved raising a child with cerebral palsy, which my son had been diagnosed with the previous year. It reminded me how through all the busyness of appointments and therapies and special care that we have to provide, we should never forget that at the end of the day, we are caring for a unique and special little child within. That little child was staring back at me and I just took a moment and slowed down to soak in how precious he was. How was I to know this would be the last time I would get to bathe you, son?

As I finished up washing and rinsing him, I wrapped him in his blue towel and took my baby boy to the room to dress him. I lathered him up quickly with the Johnson & Johnson’s Bedtime lotion we always used for him. Since he was just a couple of months away from turning four we thought this scent was older smelling as opposed to the baby one we used on Gracie. I remember so vividly, putting on the lotion, legs first, then his arms and tummy, a quick swipe across his back and making sure to cover his face. I continued on in a hurry: his onesie, shorts, socks, therapy shoes, support vest. I propped him up on my knees and combed his hair, part on the left, combed to the right. Oh, son, if I had only known I would have spent more time dressing you.

So handsome Boogie! I announced as I carried him down our hallway and buckled him into his highchair. Okay babe your turn! I told my husband and rushed into the bathroom to take a shower. By this time my husband was dressed and waiting for Christian at his highchair to feed him breakfast. So I ran off into the shower without a second thought to what the rest of the day had in store for us. And sure enough, the majority of the day went as planned. We arrived at church on time for the noonday service and sat in our church’s fellowship hall where you’re able to sit with your children and where eating is allowed.

Christian had a good afternoon at church. He was happy and smiling, sitting in his stroller next to Chris and I had Gracie on my lap eating her snacks. He seemed like his usual self that day, intent at grabbing for the veggie sticks we put on his stroller tray and just all around in a good mood. Just a week prior we had been in the emergency room because he had suffered a grand mal seizure. That was the first one he had experienced. Although we had always suspected he was having other types of seizures, his neurologist could not confirm our suspicions. But we were hopeful everything would be turning around soon since Christian completed an EEG test that week and we would be finding out the cause of Christian’s seizures so we could get him the help he needed. Two medications had already failed and we were desperate to find out what was going on. The last medication we had put him on just a month and a half prior left him sleeping almost all day and night and caused him to drop weight. He didn’t look good at all and was unlike his usual happy self.

But here was our son. Doing wonderful and looking so much healthier than the week before. He was back to eating, back to smiling, back to being alert and enjoying his Sunday at church with us like we always did. Midway during the service Chris had taken Christian out of his stroller to let him stretch and just sit with him for a bit. But seeming a little uncomfortable Chris began to put Christian back in his stroller. As I was going to tell Chris to let me hold him instead, I saw Christian smile as he reclined back in his stroller and realized he was perfectly content where he was, so I didn’t say anything.

I never liked to see my boy laying or sitting for too long. Any of my family will tell you that I always made sure he was included in everything we were doing. Karaoke? You best believe Christian was part of the fun. Swimming? Absolutely. Shark swim shorts and the coolest long sleeve swim shirt. Dancing? That was one of our favorites, he loved music. Him and I would always dance around in the kitchen together as I held him and spun him around. There was not a thing my boy would be left out of because of his disabilities. Christian was a typical three-year-old in every other way. He just had a different race to run that many others do not have to endure.

With the service coming to a close, we packed the kids back in our Ford Explorer and headed home for lunch and the kids’ naps. Nothing was out of the ordinary, this was our typical routine for a Sunday. When we arrived home, Chris put the kids in their highchairs and I went to work in the kitchen prepping everyone’s meals. I’ll make the salad for us if you want to feed the kids, I told my husband. He agreed and started feeding the kids, but the meal didn’t last long.

I’m putting Christian to bed, babe, Chris said to me from the living room where he was feeding the kids. He’s tired. He can’t even stay awake. I responded to him that that was fine and continued to chop away at our salad. Chris walked down our hallway to the last room at the end which was Christian’s room and lay him down. Soon after that he put Gracie in her room and lay her in her crib and shut the door behind him. It was about 2:45 p.m. The kids were down for their naps, typically parents’ time to relax for a bit and get some things done while the kids are snoozing. We were no different.

We sat at the kitchen table and quietly ate our lunch together. Both of our kids were very light sleepers so we always had to be very quiet once they went down for their naps. The air conditioners buzzed with quiet noise and all the shades were drawn in our house to keep it cool on this hot day. As we finished up our lunch Chris asked me to check on Christian. Gracie, we knew was sound asleep because she hadn’t made a peep and it had been at least thirty minutes. So I walked down the hallway to his room, and as soon as I entered, he lifted up his head from his bed. I walked over to his window air conditioner and turned it down a level because it was a bit cold in his room and he was still wearing his onesie and shorts but with no socks. I saw that he was winding down and almost ready to fall asleep so I didn’t spend too much time in his room. Mimi Tuteez, I said to him. (Mimi was a term we’ve always used in our family for sleep. And Tuteez was one of Christian’s many nicknames along with Boogie and Goonie. Goonie was his most popular nickname in our family though by far). Christian plopped his head back down on his bed and I left confident he would be falling asleep soon.

I went back to sit at the kitchen table and told Chris, He’s gonna fall asleep soon. We always knew his telltale signs: he slept on his stomach and would lift up his head and plop it back down on the bed. He would do this several times until he was so tired he could barely lift up his head and he would doze off into sleep. We had seen him do it for years on his monitor, ever since he was a baby. But just recently his monitor had broken and we hadn’t yet purchased a new one. Chris thought maybe we could do without it at Christian’s age but I was feeling like we still needed to get one. I always felt more comfortable being able to keep an eye on him in his room. At this point however, we didn’t have one so we had just gotten used to checking on him often.

Okay well I’m going to go outside and wash the car, why don’t you come outside with me? Chris asked. He was done with lunch and I was about finished as well. It’ll give the kids time to sleep and it’ll be quiet in here so we won’t wake them up. He was right. I hesitated for a moment and then decided to go out with him and spend some quality time as husband and wife. It was so nice outside. The heat was settling down a bit and we began to wash our car together and just chat. I played music by Sting on my phone at Chris’s request and we just enjoyed our time together. Both of our kids’ bedroom windows were right where we were washing the car on the front lawn so we kept everything somewhat low so we didn’t wake them up and also, so we could hear if they woke up or were crying.

Chris wrapped up cleaning the car and I decided to trim our overgrown hibiscus that was so top heavy it was leaning over and ready to buckle. We always loved gardening. Following my lead, he went to grab a few gardening tools from the back yard to do some trimming of his own. Can you check on the kids please babe, he asked as he walked away. Okay I will, I said and continued hacking away at the hibiscus. Fifteen minutes passed and I totally forgot to check on them as this hibiscus was turning out to be more work than I thought. Chris opened the front door of our house and asked, Did you check on the kids?

No, I didn’t honey sorry I forgot, I answered.

Okay I’ll check on them, he answered matter-of-factly. Within a minute, he opened the door again, They’re fine, he said. Both asleep. It was just before the four o’clock hour at this time.

With the hibiscus trimmed and the car cleaned and parked, I headed to the back yard with Chris to do a little more gardening. After another thirty minutes or so I decided to go into the house and check on the kids again. I stopped at Gracie’s door first and just listened. I could always hear when she was awake because she would be babbling and banging her toys around in her crib or yelling for one of us. But nothing. She was definitely still asleep in the cool and quietness of our house. Next, I walked slowly down to Christian’s room and peeked in without trying to make any noise. As I mentioned already, my kids are light sleepers. So usually when Christian was ready to wake up, he would start moving and rolling around in his bed so that you could pick him up. It was his way of letting us know he was done sleeping.

As I peeked in, I could only see Christian’s legs covered with his blanket because of the angle he was sleeping. Usually, we lay him down to where when we open his door we have a full view of him. But today he was lying on the other side of his bed so all I saw was his legs and feet. I paused and waited a while to see if he would do his usual moving around so I could