My daughter hardly speaks anymore, she's fourteen and is being crushed by grief and guilt and I understand really I do because I feel the same way. My little boy was stolen from us by a passing car and I don't know how we'll ever go on. I pray to God every day and ask him why, why did he take my little man away?
My wife is broken, she loved him so much, he was her first born and he taught her how to love. Joey's birth gave us a family, I had a little boy who I knew I would never miss out on like I had with Parker or Darcy. I never thought that I would lose him, especially not like this.
Today he would be four, it's his birthday. It's been seven months since he died, died? How could my baby boy die? Bones is angry; she's glaring at everyone and yelling at the twins, they don't understand what today is, seven months is a long time for toddlers, they don't really remember Joey anymore and it really breaks their Mommy's heart.
Everyone is coming over, we're having a birthday party of sorts for our little man, we always will I think. We haven't really let him go at all. His room remains untouched, although we did move Lee into the spare room. It was too hard to tuck him in at night and see that empty bed where another smiling little boy used to be.
My two and a half year old daughter runs over to me "Daddy, who party?" he asks, she's getting so talkative, it makes me think of our littler chatterbox, our lost joker. I scoop Kerry up into my arms and kiss her head "it's for Joey baby, it's his birthday today" I tell her and she looks confused, we don't really talk about him much these days, it's too painful.`
"Who Joey?" she asks and I feel a stab of pain and guilt, my little girl doesn't remember her brother, I guess it makes sense, she wasn't yet two when he died. "Joey's your brother baby" I tell her and she frowns, she knows what brother is, Parker and Lee are her brothers "where he Daddy?" she questions.
I smile sadly at my little girl "he's in heaven baby girl, playing with angels" I explain and she nods, after losing Joey, Bones didn't care so much if I took the twins to church with me anymore, it gave me comfort to do so, so she let it go.
She wriggled for me to put her down and ran over to her twin brother Lee. My eleven year old son arrives with his mother; she gives me a peck on the cheek before going to put a dish on the table. I pull Parker into a hug "hey Bub, how are you?" I ask my once loud son, he's so quite these days and it hurts to see.
"I'm okay Dad" he whispers and pulls out of the hug before disappearing up the stairs, I doubt he's going to his room, I know if I went to check I would find his curled up on Joey's bed, Parker misses his brother so very much, but he's getting there, getting a bit better.
Darcy is in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on Joey's cake. Bones is out in the yard, sitting on a chair by the pool, she's looking off into space, I can tell this is hard for her, she misses her son and she doesn't know how to cope with it.
Angela and Jack arrive with their little ones, they have a little boy just months older than Joey, Stanhope, the pair were best friends and seeing little Stanny is so hard on us, especially Tempe, she sees the little boy who used to play with her baby.
Once everyone arrives, we gather outside, we sing happy birthday and blow out the candles on his cake, we each have an orange balloon, orange was his favourite colour. Some of them have messages on them and others not. There are gifts for all of the kids, a toy dog each, Joey loved dogs, we had planned on getting him a puppy for his birthday this year; God it seems so long ago that we were those happy parents.
We still got him the puppy, even though he's not here to enjoy him. The little chocolate lab is called Clifford; that was Joey's favourite show. Darcy is hugging the puppy to her, tears glistening in her eyes. We all miss our smiling little boy so much.
A/N: My mouse Neville died today and I miss him so much, I loved that little guy. RIP Neville, Mamma loved you so much.
This story will be through varying peoples P.O.V and will take place over many years, watching as the family grows and changes and how their lives were touched and changed by one special little boy.