These past few days have been extremely hard for our family. I really don't know how to start this post or how it will go. I just know that over the past few years, writing has been such a great outlet for me to get my emotions out.
Sunday morning, as I was about to get in the shower, my wife came down to the basement sobbing and told me that our sweet little grandson had passed away during the night. I completely froze and didn't know what to do. I wasn't sure if I had heard her right, but she told me that we needed to leave and go to their house right away.
I don't remember much of the drive there. I was shaking and trying to keep my breath calm as I drove. My wife and daughter were in the car and they were just crying the entire time while I was trying to keep it all together and get us there safely.
When we got there and went into the house, I broke when I saw our other baby girl. She is like a daughter to us and we helped raise her since she was around 10 years old. She lost her father early on in her life, and our family had become a safe place for her and we tried to give her all the love in the world.
The next few hours were a blur. We got to say our goodbyes to our little guy, which was extremely hard. I am not one to show emotions, especially around people outside of our immediate family, but when I saw his sweet little face, I broke down. He was always such a happy little guy and he still had a smile on his face. I just held him tight as I cried.
This is the hardest thing we have ever had to go through. I do not know what to do. Sunday was an emotionally exhausting day and as I was getting ready to go to sleep, I realized that in the morning, he would still be gone. I think we all spent the day looking through all the pictures that we had of him and I realized we would never get to take anymore pictures. I am glad that my family knows how important pictures are, so we have a lot of them.
Each time we watched him, we had so much fun together. He was the sweetest little guy in the entire world. He was always smiling and he was starting to get ready to laugh. I am sad that we will never get to hear his laugh or hear his first words.
This entire situation just feels so surreal. How could something like this happen? I keep getting hit with waves of sadness as the thought of him being gone keeps coming back. Life is not fair.
We are going to miss our little Marshall forever. I am glad that we were able to give him a safe place and that he felt so loved. We will never forget you. Thank you for allowing me to be your Papa. I love you so much buddy.
Life is a precious gift.
