Just imagine

Just imagine having a beautiful baby boy, he was perfect in all ways, right from his chubby toes right up to his beautiful face.

Just imagine all his firsts! His smile, sitting, crawling, standing, walking, foods, teeth, haircut, first friendships!

Just imagine going through each developmental stage and milestone. Playing at the parks, going for walks each day and putting him down for a sleep each night and waking up to his beautiful smiling face each morning.

Just imagine going to birthday parties he was invited to, picking him up from school or daycare everyday. Making him dinner every night, and cuddling on the couch after dinner.

Just imagine watching him grow and learn new things everyday and how his mind is expanding with each piece of knowledge he soaks in. With each question he asks and how he just ponders about the answer.

Just imagine his first day of school, the excitability and nervousness all together. The stories he has when the day is done and your coming home on the bus and his little mouth can't stop because his day was fantastic!

Just imagine the dreams or nightmares and your all he has and he is your entire world. Your one of many jobs is to keep him safe and protected.

Just imagine your "little boy" coming out to you just before bedtime and saying "Mom, you don't have to tuck me in anymore, I'm a big boy now" and how that just made your heart sink.

My little boy is growing up.

Just imagine his first job that he got. How proud and excited he was to be making his own money and the responsibility that comes with it.

Just imagine him going out on his own with the friends you hope are good. You hope you have instilled the right morals and taught him well.

Just imagine him to be a natural athlete, that any sport he picked up he excelled at. The one most important to him was skateboarding.

Just imagine him coming home with friends he wants to protect and give them shelter because they don't have a safe place to go and he feels his home is safe, warm and comfortable. You know then, you have a son who has a heart of gold and it's one more thing to be proud of him for.

Just imagine all those random texts of him still telling you about his day or funny things he's seen or just to say hello.

Just imagine him getting his learners and is now learning to drive in your vehicle and how nervous you are but how excited he is!

Just imagine going bed shopping for his 18th birthday, trying to get him ready to move out on his own one day and the smile on his face because it was his choice which one.

Just imagine him working hard everyday and saving his own money, and buying his first car and how proud he is and how proud you are, but your still nervous because he's your only baby.

Just imagine your son has just turned the adult age, you've gone through the trials and tribulations of adolescents, you've both survived! Your excited and sad at the same time.

Just imagine walking in his room just months after his 19th birthday, to find him in his warm, safe and comfortable bed, dead. The screams and cry's coming from your mouth. The agony you feel as you try to bring him back to life. The 9-1-1 call you make, in hopes they can resuscitate him because you couldn't. The words coming from the paramedics mouth "I'm sorry".

Just imagine the heartbreak, the overwhelming feeling of losing your only child, the one who you raised and became the compassionate man he was.

Just imagine not ever being able to see, hear or hug your child again. The emptiness that will always linger, a part of you always missing. Feeling incomplete.

Just imagine trying to hold yourself up, while crying uncontrollably inside and out, while everyone else is moving about. Time does not stand still for anybody.

Just imagine trying to make sense of it all, the reasoning behind the loss, if any. The faith you once had is now gone and your belief system has now been altered.

Just imagine the new journey you've have been forced into living and trying to adapt to your new reality with all your mixed emotions of life, you push through even though you don't want to.

Now...this is all you have.

Just imagine his adulthood, his wedding, as he'd be in love and would have treated her like a princess, his children, he would have been the most active father, because his was absent, his first home, because he worked so hard to get.

Just imagine I would have been the most proudest grandmother and I am the most proudest mother. For my son has given me so much and yet left me with so much more to learn.

Just imagining, it's all I have.

Curtis Kozak

August 9, 1995 - November 27, 2014