Sixteen Years

My baby boy Tony has been in Heaven for 16 years on March 25. I still miss him so much but am full of joy at the thought of how happy he is there. He was the most amazing son and I am thankful to my Lord for letting me have him here with me for 20 years. After me and his dad split up, I used to tell him that HE was my "child support", not the money his dad gave me. We had such good times together. Once a week, on my night off, we would go out to eat (usually at Jerrys) and he always got chili spaghetti. Then sometimes, depending on how much money we had, we would go to a movie or to the mall just to "window shop". He loved going into Footlocker to look at basketball shoes. Once when we went to see Indiana Jones, during the scene where the guy was eating baby snakes, I just about got sick, but he just kept right on throwing that popcorn in his mouth laughing at me!
We always had a close relationship and we loved to share our days with each other. Many times when I was downstairs ironing he would come down and sit on the toilet (with the lid down of course) and we would talk. I think that is why I hate to iron now. Because that is one of the times I miss him most.
When he was around 9 and 10 years old, we would be watching tv and he couldn't get close enough to me....would lay all over me and I would have to get him to move to get up and go to the bathroom or to get a snack. Then at around 13, all of a sudden he was grown up and I couldn't pay him to sit next to me. And at that age when we went to the mall, he always had Steven or Eric or someone with him and didn't even want me to go into the same movie as them!! Oh how fickle!
He loved Halloween even after he was too old to go trick-or-treating. Once he dressed up as an stabbing victim....bandaged all over with fake blood and a fake knife going through his head. He had a tape of spooky music playing and all the lights off in the house...put candles on the stairs and the front door open where you could see them, sat in a chair on the porch, very still until kids came to knock on the door...then he would get up to get candy for them and they what they thought was a dummy came alive! I had to make him stop because he was really scaring the smaller kids.
He was always very competitive and loved baseball, basketball, golf, and billards. I started him a collection of sports figurines like an elephant playing basketball and a bear playing baseball and he collected many over the years. When he died, many of his friends would come to the house and want to have something of his to remember him by and alot of them would pick one of his little sports things.
When I married Roger he was 17 and they really bonded so well. They had so much fun together. If one of them was in the shower the other one would get a pitcher of ice water, sneak in and pour it over the shower and let me tell you....the screams were bone-chilling! A couple of times he went to Pidgen Forge with us, once just to go to the Elvis show down there. He loved Elvis! But the other time we went we stayed about 3 days and they had so much fun riding go-carts and helicopters and just being buddies. When he was sick he told someone that Roger wasn't just a good man, he was his best friend.
Oh yeah I miss him everyday.....but there will be a day.....when I will see Jesus face to face and get to hug my baby boy again!