For weeks after Jackson's death Jenna and I crawled beneath the covers on our bed, pulled the curtains on the windows tightly shut and refused to acknowledge the world.

Well... no... that's not entirely true. Before we were able to do this, we were faced with impossible responsibility of planning a memorial service for our infant son. And let me tell you, if there's a moment in my life that ranks second in painfulness to the moment I walked out of the hospital without my son, it's the moment I had to walk into that funeral home two days later and identify his body.

It's a moment indescribable except to say this -- even days following death and all that accompanies it... even then, he looked beautiful. And that's so unfair. To know that here's this beautiful little boy, still perfect in every way - his eyelashes long and curling, his dark hair smoothed across his forehead, his lips creased forever into the signature pout we'd come to know and love... perfect in every way but one. The one that makes all the difference. The evil reality of death.

Jenna held him that day, walked right into the room and picked him up, rocked him in her arms and kissed his tiny head as if it was the most natural thing in the world. As if she'd only left him for a moment. As if she was picking him up from the sitters house and preparing to take him home. Only, it was the most unnatural thing in the world and I could tell through her tears that she was breaking. I stood by her side, rubbing her back, my hand on Jackson's head, but I was unable to do much more than that.

We stayed that way for a long time before the tears finally seemed to dry and Jenna edged away, gently laying Jack down on the velvet covered table where he'd been when we entered the room. I helped her get him dressed in a diaper and his last outfit - the tiny sleeper with the green elephants that he was supposed to wear home from the hospital. It was scary to touch him and I was afraid anything we did would do more damage to his already battered little body, but Jenna moved with grace and ease, the spirit of of mother. She knew she couldn't hurt him anymore and so she made sure to take in every part of him one last time. Finally she swaddled him in a blue blanket one of her best friends had knit for him. The blanket was soft and fuzzy, the kind of blanket you could imagine wrapping yourself in forever.

The last thing she did that afternoon was place a toy elephant next to him. An elephant that matched his sleeper and was embroidered with the words, "Thank Heaven for Little Boys." I remember thinking how ironic. I remember wondering if maybe we hadn't been thankful enough, because in our case Heaven had taken our boy away.

I don't remember a lot after that. I know that at one point I walked past a desk in the funeral home with information for families. And I know that one paper stood out over the rest. It stated that "Death is a Natural Part of Life". Well I'm here to tell you there's nothing natural about the death of a child. Nothing natural about burying your own flesh and blood. Nothing natural about planning a memorial after seven weeks when you were planning on the rest of your life at the very least.

We had to sit down with a man in a small room at the funeral home and discuss our "wishes" that afternoon when our only real wish was to have our son alive. We had to pick out a casket in which to bury our child when we didn't want to bury him at all. A casket that would have to be special ordered and overnighted because those weren't the kind of caskets the funeral home kept on hand. Because those are the kind of caskets that remind everyone of something too painful to even think about.

We had to choose readings and songs for the service. We had to think of what we'd say and who we'd include... when all we wanted was for someone else to do it all for us. But as the parent of a dead child, you don't get that. Sure you get a lot of offers for help, and they are certainly, most of them, genuine... but there's nothing anyone can do to really help you.

In the end we decided on a private service just for family and closest friends. Just for those individuals in our lives who'd shared in Jackson's life. In the end, Jenna chose the 'perfect' songs... songs about losing your child that I will never ever listen to again. In the end I somehow stood beside my wife on that rainy Saturday in August and held myself together as I was hugged repeatedly. As friends and family offered their condolences. Somehow I managed to stay upright in the cemetery through the pouring rain and hold my wife as they lowered our baby boy into the ground, and she collapsed beside me.

And when everyone left after that dark day, Jenna and I crawled into our bed beneath the covers, we closed the blinds and shut out the light and we stayed there for weeks. Not because it's what we wanted to do, but because it's what we needed.

Closest friends brought food. They asked us if they could do anything, asked if we were okay.

But we weren't, and in those moments it was impossible to believe we ever would be again.

And then, three weeks after the funeral I awoke to the sunrise spilling into the room, the window's open, a cool fall Tennessee breeze floating gently in. For the first time in forever, it actually felt good. I turned over on my side to cuddle closer to Jenna, longing for the closeness we'd shared those past few weeks, longing for that same escape we'd found every morning in each other. I realized instead that for the first time in three weeks, her side of the bed was empty. I could hear singing through the open doorway, the sounds of her beautiful voice echoing through the morning, and so I climbed out of bed and followed sound down the hall to the door at the end. The door we hadn't opened since the night our son had died.

The sight of her there in Jackson's nursery was both comforting and heartbreaking. This room was supposed to be for him. It was made for him. From the carefully painted lighthouse mural to the nautical themed bedding with the sailboats Jenna had let me pick because I dreamed of one day taking my son sailing with me, the way my own father had done so many years ago. There was the crib against the wall he'd never sleep in and the changing table we'd never change him on. The closet and the dresser filled with clothes he'd never wear. The shelves lined with books we'd never get to read. There were the picture frames we'd never fill with pictures and the rocking chair we'd never get to rock him in. Painful momentos, every single one of the memories we'd never get to make.

Jenna was sitting in the rocking chair now, she'd turned it so it faced the big window looking out on the backyard and the wooded area behind our house. In her arms she held the teddy bear Jackson slept with in the hospital. She was rocking back and forth and singing the song she had chosen for his memorial;

It was a song I promised myself I'd never listen to again... but it sounded beautiful when she sang. It sounded beautiful to hear her sing again. She didn't know I was there, standing in the empty doorway, her voice bringing fresh tears to my eyes. I realized it'd been weeks since I'd allowed myself to cry.

The hot tears spilled down my cheeks and Jenna stood, carefully she laid the teddy bear in the crib and turned to find me standing there. She walked silently over and melted into my arms. Our tears mixed together then as we stood there crying in the doorway of our son's room for long minutes that seemed like forever.

"Nick", Jenna whispered, wiping fresh tears as she pulled away from my embrace and looked up into my eyes, "We can't do this anymore."

I looked at her with questioning eyes. "What can't we do Jenna?"

"This..." she whispered, waving her arm around the room and then down the hall towards our bedroom. "We have to keep living... we have to get up and get on with our lives, even if it sucks so much all I really want to do is go crawl back into bed right this minute."

I nodded and sighed because she was right. "What should we do?" I asked, hoping that she would be the first to offer a suggestion.

She shook her head. "I don't know Nick... what do people do after they lose a baby? They should probably write a book for this. I mean... maybe we should take a shower I guess... because we do sort of stink.

I laughed... for the first time since our son had died I actually laughed. And then I felt bad about it because, well... isn't it bad to laugh after your child dies? I turned away from Jenna, ashamed.

"It's okay Nick," I heard her whisper as she reached out and touched my arm. "It's okay to laugh."

I turned back to her and shook my head, "It doesn't feel okay."

"I know."

I nodded, because she did know, just as well as I did. We were in this together.

Little did Jenna or I know that that moment, in the doorway of Jackson's bedroom that morning, was the beginning of a long and painful healing process. We'd let it in... let it begin. We decided to take things one day at a time and we began with a shower and a tiny bit of laughter.