On August 8th, I took a leap and bought tickets for the family to go to FanX (a comic con in Salt Lake City). The kids, my sister, my niece, and I had been talking about going to FanX together. With Eli’s deteriorating health and prognosis of looming death in the coming weeks, I was struggling to plan anything more than a week into the future. My sister and niece wanted guidance sewing their costumes, which was something I looked forward to doing, but I had no idea what life would look like.

How do you make plans for an uncertain future? At the time, Eli was sleeping an increasing amount each day and I hoped against hope that it was because of the medication and recovering from the chest drain procedure and his recovering collapsed lung. However, I had accepted the likelihood that he would most likely be dead, or in no condition to be up and about a month and a half later.

So, I utilized a lesson I had learned and decided to buy the tickets for an event that might very well conflict with my son’s death. I have learned that it’s okay to make plans, even when I don’t know if they will actually happen. It’s harder when those plans involve paying money for something that may not be refundable, if plans change. In this case, I bought tickets for everyone except Eli, since I didn’t think he’d be able to go. I was wrong, again. Hallelujah! I bought his ticket the week of FanX.