His last hospital appointment in Melbourne. The oncologist got straight to the point. “His bone marrow results are not good. The leukaemia has come back…. There is nothing more we can do. Take him home. Love him.”

She’d been prepared for this moment. On the edge of her desk sat pencils and hospital printing paper - its clinically white starkness somewhat representative of the tone of this interaction. The tone of his hospital life thus far. And as he began filling it with dinosaurs, alien creatures, and other figments of his imaginative world, all of the colours swam before my leaking eyes. He turned, laid his hand on my shoulder, and with concerned eyes, said “don’t cry, Mama. It’s ok. Don’t cry.”

This is the type of person our Ned was. He was born 10 years ago today; an unsettled babe, yet, to become a compassionate, kind, thoughtful, sensitive boy. He only grew to be moreso through his interminable suffering. His faith in God was incomprehensible for one so young.

Don’t tell me it’ll be ok because we’ll see him again.

We will. But his is a loss that deserves to be mourned.

His is an absence that jars; the ache still catches my breath. But I have some comfort that he is with Jesus; he is no longer hurting, no longer itching, no longer fatigued and doubled over.

Happy Heavenly Double-Figures Birthday, Neddy Boy. You are so profoundly missed.

10 years of our Ned. Remember him.

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away”

~ Revelation 21:4

Edward Isham