Wednesday, October 24, 2012

"Go Sweet Baby Go" -- The Wesson Littau Foundation

Well we have officially declared The Wesson Littau Foundation as a go.

We are currently taking baby steps, as setting up a foundation is a time consuming and lengthy process. We are in the initial phase of getting accepted by the IRS as a nonprofit, charitable organization 501(c)3. The foundation will be tax exempt, meaning all contributions made to the Wesson Littau Foundation will be deductible for income tax purposes.

We are also looking for any ideas and/or drawings for the Wesson Littau Foundation's new logo. I have been sent a few ideas from a few people around the community, and I love the creativity and ideas that we have seen so far. We are looking for something that represents Wesson as a brave warrior and hero, infantile leukemia and of course the color orange. If you have any ideas, drawings, or pics we would love to see your ideas and maybe we could use it for the foundation.

If you have any wonderful options or ideas, please send to wessonlittaufoundation@hotmail.com or you can contact me or Team Wesson via facebook. We would love any help we can get.

We are ready to help raise money and awareness in Wesson's honor, and we would love all your support.

We are very excited, a little nervous...and still learning a lot about the entire process.

More information on the foundation will come as we know more ourselves. We do hope and pray that you all plan to jump on board this new journey. Both Logan and I are fueled by anger, remorse and pure frustration about the loss of our sweet baby boy.

To be honest with you, I think we've both been walking around like zombies for the past four weeks....

Yes, it has been four weeks to the day since Wesson's passing. And it still makes me sick to my stomach.

I heeded the advice of my wise sister Dawn, and made a memory box for Wesson over these past few weeks. It is in fact not a memory box, but actually a large chest -- filled with 13 months of memories. Pain, tears, love, hate, prayers, gifts, poems, pictures, toys, blankets, pacifiers, NG tubes, flush syringes and alcohol swabs, one central line, bottles, thousands of copies of various lab tests, and onesies that no other child could ever wear but Wesson. Because they said things like "Tiny But Tough", "Superman", "One Tough Cookie" "Chick Magnet"...and molds of his sweet and oh so beautiful hands that we took shortly after his passing. Those same hands that I squeezed each and every day as he lay in the bed of the Sanford Children's ICU and then again in the St. Jude Children's ICU -- because that was the only way I knew how to reassure him that I was there, that I was sorry for what was happening...and that I will always love him.

I am thankful and forever grateful that God along with the amazing staff at both Sanford Children's and St. Jude Children's were able to "treat" my son long enough to give us 13 months, and a large chest full of memories of our sweet boy. I will never forget that intense battle -- long clinic days, extensive hospital stays, masks, vomit, blood, fear, transplants, GVHD, colitis, lots and lots of crying, the reccomendation for hospice on three different occasions, the decisions, lab tests, fatigue, painful days of waiting...but even through the ugliness of cancer, what I will remember most of all that we somehow found beauty in all of it through Wesson and his will to win. His vivacious spirit and contagious smile and laughter. His flirtacious and graceful desire to win over all of the female nurses, and his couragous defeat over cancer itself.

Despite everything he had been through, despite all oddds -- Wesson beat cancer and he smiled through the entire thing.

There is a lot that we were unable to share with the public, friends, and even family about the details regarding some of the ugly and even not so ugly parts of such an aggressive cancer and the treatment that must go with it. These are the parts that haunt me day to day, and most of all when I lay my head down to sleep at night.

These are the parts that to me are unforgettable. And why something must be done to forego change. The aggressiveness of infantile luekemia such as Wesson's is more often than not a terminal cancer...and most physician's will admit that if the disease does not take them, the toxicity of the treatment will.

And that is not okay.

I miss my boy so much that I feel like there's a knife in my heart that with each day that passes by someone pushes it in an inch deeper.

And that is not okay.

I do however want to share a story from this weekend that gives me hope when I'm at my lowest low and missing my sweet baby to the point where I'm not sure I can stand one more second. My entire family was in town for the opening weekend of pheasant hunting -- and Logan, Keegan and I were staying at my parents house so that we could be close to the family that was around and surround ourselves with the love, and fun and memories that comes with being together.

My sister Kara knew I was struggling to find peace on Saturday night, reminiscing on Wesson and his battle and all of the anger, frustration and tears that come with it -- and when the commotion fell silent and all of the others in the house were at rest...niether Kara nor I could find the peace to fall asleep. She comes upstairs and summons me out of bed and out to look at the night sky. I said "Am I going to need my glasses for this??" and Kara says "absolutely".

So we headed out to look at the night sky and what do we see but the most beautiful star filled sky a person could ever ask for. It was as if we were looking right into the heavens, and almost like we could reach out and touch each one of those galliant bright shining pieces of God's little angels.

And believe me if that had truly been possible, I would have reached up and grabbed the one that I spotted shining much brighter than all of the others, wrapped it in my arms...and never let go.

It was beautiful -- and it was Wesson.

Wesson found a way to bring his mom and aunt Kara peace that night, and he has shown himself in other places of which is so beautifully supernatural, that the details I must save for the book. My sweet boy has always found a way of making his momma feel better, at times of which I would have fallen to peaces otherwise.

And today as I opened one of our memorial cards received in the mail on Friday (sent to us from a local member of the community), that I had for some reason saved until today to look at -- it reads: "Perhaps They Are Not Really Stars in the Sky...Perhaps They're Openings in the Heavens Where Our Loved Ones Shine Down To Let Us Know They Are Happy".

So when at times I find my faith failing me, and I begin to wonder "why" God? -- "why" Wesson, "why" so much suffering, and "why" did you give him to us only to allow us to fall so deeply in love with him, and then cruelly snatch him away?

That's when I remember that bright and shining star on Saturday night, and I confide in the fact that Wesson IS still here. There he was in the sky in Memphis, TN when Keegan saw him in the form of a cloud as he left his body shortly before his declared time of passing on September 26th. In the tile at the Catholic Church right next to my grandpa Donald Steele, showing his very own grandmother that he has in fact rejoined the family circle at God's throne --- and that he is happy, safe, and finally pain free and in the loving embrace of his own loving great-grandfather.

So here is to the future and Wesson's legacy. We will keep praying and looking to God and our little angel Wesson for guidance on where to go next to help make things better.

 And until then, I will anxiously await for more signs of my sweet Wesson and his everliving and everlasting spirit.

Wesson's work here on Earth has only just begun.

2 comments:

  1. Kristi, I read your account of when your sister took you out to see the stars and it brought back a time when I viewed the stars after the death of our second son, I remember looking up that night and seeing this star reaching out, for a moment I felt like I could touch it and there for touch him. The feeling is indescrible. You know. We have 3 angels, and I look up and reach out when ever I need to feel their prescense. I think of you often, and pray for you and your family. (and you are right there some things that you can't share with anyone, you probably couldn't even put them into words right now, and honestly, you may never be able to,and thats okay)Just follow your heart and you'll do okay. Love and hugs, and many prayers, Vicki

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  2. Kristi,
    Reading your story makes me shiver and moves me to tears. I lost my baby brother when he was just 2.5 years old. He was the most beautiful, happy , wonderful baby brother that I always wanted. Though he did not have cancer , there was a tragic fire in our garage that nearly took him from us that very day. And amazingly and against all odds and what all the "experts" told us his chances of surviving were almost impossible, but he fought for two weeks. It was horribly painful and excruciating knowing and seeing his pain as he struggled to stay with us, and when he did pass away after those two weeks, my mother explained his passing as a much better solution for him and a way to celebrate that he was no longer suffering. I was just 14 then and I still feel him around me all the time. I really just had to tell you how much I relate to every emotion you share here and I admire your point of view and commitment to see the bright side, as I also was made to do. Hearts and Hugs to you and your family, Arianne

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