Well friends...I hope you enjoy these pictures of my grandson, Gabriel Allen. It is a small compilation of his short four months here on earth. In some of them you will see his aunts from his mom's side, my nieces, his daddy (my son) Kelson, and my daughter-in-law, Ally, who was the best 'Auntie' he could've asked for. She spoiled him so much! I enjoyed putting it together for you all. Yes, I cried, I smiled, I chuckled, I remembered but it's ok. If you get to know him in a small way, you'll see why we miss him so much and why he was loved beyond belief. He didn't enter this world in the greatest circumstances as his parents split up a month or two after he was conceived. They were both 17 at the time. However, I don't think you'll ever find a 17 yr old male more ready to be a daddy than Kelson was. You see, Kelson feels to this very day, that God told him Gabriel was his and everything would be alright. In our wildest imaginations, we never would've thought that "everything" would include his death the morning of August 13th. Scootch's parents, separately decided on the name Gabriel. She liked the name. Kelson's went a little deeper. He liked the name, and after looking it up and finding it meant "God's Messenger", that was it for him. The morning of his birth, I will never forget. Morgan and Ally were here on pre-deployment leave. We had scheduled family pics, for April 6th, hoping Gabriel would be born. He wasn't. Janelle, the mom, had an appt on that day and was told it would be another week or so before the baby was born. To our surprise, we ended up in the hospital at 4:45 or 5:00 am, on April 7th because she had gone into labor. What?! The doctors were worried he would be maybe 4 lbs...he was 8 lbs 5 oz! Janelle's not a big girl, so we were also surprised that Gabriel was 21.5" long. I honestly don't know how she was able to carry such a big boy. The day before Father's Day, Kelson received a letter from the state stating, thru DNA, he was Gabriel's daddy. Kelson knew it. This gama knew it, too, but the paternity test was something that had to be done. On Father's Day, there was 5 generations together. My grandma, my mom, myself, Kelson, and Gabriel. We thought it would be one of the last few pictures taken of grandma (she's now 92), so I wanted it taken. Not knowing it was Gabriel's only Father's Day here, it has become so much more precious. At the time of Gabriel's death, he weighed 16 lbs and was 26.5". I found out from his other gma that Janelle's dad had been 6'3" and stocky (German descent). Scootch definitely picked up the Matson build! Kelson had Scootch from Friday afternoons to Sunday evenings. He works on Friday, so I was the one to pick Scootch up. I really, don't like Friday's at this time. Gabriel's death on August 13th, due to SIDS, will be one of the hardest days I think I'll ever have to go through. A SIDS death is a death that is hard to accept. There is no closure because, to this day, they have no clue what causes it. As a Gama, I grieve the death of Gabriel. As a Mom, I grieve for Kelson as well, because he lost his son. I'm getting better. Two steps forward, three steps backwards. I had the chance to visit a Corpsman wife, whose husband went through BC, A School, and FMTB at Camp Pendleton, with Morgan, in California for a few days. Jenne has three children. Her youngest is Hunter who turned 1 on 9/11. Hunter let me be a Gama to him for those days and it was healing. I have a long way to go and there will always be a piece of my heart missing and it will never be replaced.
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