I stood at the back of the crowded cemetary and listened quietly as some friends of Matthew's mother sang one of his favorite songs from the Muppets Movie. Matthew may have been an old soul but he was still a child at heart and he'd always loved the Muppets. I remembered the conversation we'd had a couple weeks before about how he'd helped his mom plan his funeral and how he'd choosen his favorite songs from the Muppet movies. He had told me he didn't want the burden of planning his memorial to fall on his mother's shoulders when he knew she'd be grieving enough already.

Little things like that about Matthew had always amazed me.

It all seemed so surreal, standing at the back of that crowd and listening to the songs he'd chosen for himself, now being sung in his honor. I glanced up towards the beautiful summer sky and felt the cool pacific breeze blowing gently across my face. If there was one thing I'd always loved about California it was that breeze and it's ability to make even the hottest of summer days feel wonderful. I had to wonder if Matthew was somewhere up there in the sky, lying upon a big fluffy cloud and watching as we all celebrated the life he'd left behind. I could only imagine the smile on his face as he peered down at the sea of red, his favorite color that everyone at the cemetary was wearing in some form or another. I could imagine the grin that would follow when he saw all of the blue balloons we were holding... one for every guest which meant there had to be well over 500 blue balloons hovering in the air above our heads just waiting to be released.

Or maybe Heaven was somewhere far beyond this earth... far beyond the realm of possibility for Matthew to see or hear any of what was going on at his funeral. Maybe in Heaven you couldn't remember all that you'd left behind. Maybe what we experience as years on earth are only short moments in Heaven and maybe in a minute we'll all be together again. I didn't know... I've never known. All I knew in that moment was that I hoped Matthew could feel the incredible amount of love being sent his way from the earth towards the Heavens in his name.

I stared down at the booklet in my hand... the program for his service that was filled with pages upon pages of photographs and memories. I was there on page 15. A photo of "Matthew and his favorite Nurse, Jessica McLean." It was taken outside of the hospital that day a couple weeks before... the day I'd gone to say goodbye. The day he'd gone home for the very last time.

Home to die. It was where he wanted to be. It was where his mother wanted him to be. It was where we all knew he needed to be.

I smiled as I read the lyrics to the song from the movie I'd remembered watching with Matthew a few times in his many years in the hospital. If ever there was a time in my life when I was comforted by words... it was then.

I knew in my heart that Matthew had known where he was headed. He'd told me that myself on numerous occasions... that he was going back there.

Going back to that familiar place where love surrounds you and you float on featherless wings. Back to that somewhere beautiful he'd always talked about.

I looked towards the front of the crowd, past the sea of balloons to where Matthew's mother and his sister were seated. I watched as they stood and walked towards the casket, his mother wiped her eyes silently with a tissue, his sister seemed too young to really comprehend everything that was happening. I watched as the two of them stood beside his burial spot and spoke their final words. The family members gathered at the front of the crowd followed slowly. The procession of people lasted nearly 10 minutes. 10 minutes during which the people around me cried and laughed and shared stories of the wonderful boy we'd all come to know and love in some way or another.

After those 10 minutes had passed, the priest at the front of the crowd stood and motioned for all of us to join in prayer. The prayer was short, it's meaning powerful. I couldn't remember the words, but I remembered the feeling. A young man had died and the world was grieving. He motioned for all of us to release our balloons and the sky quickly filled with a mass of blue, flying off in every direction.

He died on a Sunday. Alone in his bedroom at home... the way we all knew he would have wanted it to be.

His mother had found him moments after she believed he'd taken his final breaths of air.

"He was curled up on his side with his hands beneath his cheek, the bright September sunlight shining through his window casting shadows off his sweet pale face. A small smile had crept onto his lips... a smile I know came from finally making it to Heaven after all his years of struggling on Earth. It was a smile so beautiful I can't even begin to imagine how wonderful Heaven must be. My son never looked more peaceful to me."

And to know Matthew it totally made sense. He had looked forward to his death for a while now. Not his death so much as what was waiting for him at the end of his life. He would finally be going where he knew he was headed. Now he was finally at peace... he was finally free from pain.

I waited a moment and released my own balloon, watching as it flew off for the Heavens, knowing it would never make it. Heaven was not the place for balloons... Heaven was the place for angels.

Matthew was an angel now and Matthew, I knew, was in Heaven.

I arrived home a few hours later emotionally taxed and physically drained. I'd been released from bedrest only a few days before when I'd first found out about Matthew's passing and I'd gone straight to the doctor hoping beyond all hope that he would release me from my bedroom prison so that Aj couldn't force me to stay home from the funeral. He'd checked me over and deemed me 'healthy as horse' and holding strong to little Tad. I was relieved and saddened at the same time. Relieved to be able to move around freely for the final weeks of my pregnancy. Saddened to be knowing that one of the first things I'd be venturing out to do would be to attend the services for one of my most beloved patients.

I'd remembered the conversation with Aj... it hadn't gone well.

Oh... he'd been amazingly supportive and okay with everything, knowing that the doctor was okay with with me being out of bed and going (he was there when the doctor told me I could), and he'd been amazingly comforting to me regarding the whole situation... but I had melted down completely. A mess of emotion and hormones. I'd spent most of the afternoon preparing for the funeral, a blubbering mess of bloated pregnant tears.

I sat down at the kitchen table and rested my head on my arms. The house was empty and silent. Aj had gone out for a final hoorah with the boys... his 'last big night out before the baby' as he'd put it... and the girls were all out together getting dinner somewhere. I'd wished for a small moment that I'd bypassed the funeral and gone out with the girls. But it wouldn't have been a fair testament to the young man I'd spent so many years of my life taking care of. I couldn't have missed out on his last goodbye and felt anything but miserable about doing so.

I crawled towards the bedroom and curled up into the bed, tucking myself deep under the covers and burying my face quietly into the pillow. I had no tears left to cry and no energy left to cry them if I did. I fell quickly asleep then and woke only a few hours later when Aj crawled into bed beside me and took me in his arms, pulling me close to his chest as I laid my head there and listened to the steady rhythm of his beating heart.

I couldn't believe that soon it would no longer be 'just the two of us'. Soon we would add another warm body to the bed. Another sleepy head to rest upon our chests. I dreamed so many nights of watching my baby sleeping there beside me... the sounds of breathing, the smell of baby breath. I'd never looked more forward to anything in my life.

It was hard to believe that life could be so cruel and amazing, wonderful and disheartening all in the same moments... all in the same days. I cuddled tighter into Aj's chest, the smell of his cologne comforting me as I nodded off into a peaceful sleep.