Monday Jan 12th 9:14pm

I spent most of the last few days keeping as busy as possible trying to get through the day. All of Jakes immediate family, Marci, Anne, Alex, Teresa and Eric "Fish" were there at his bedside in the end. We all talked him thru the last moments of this life into the other. I do not like remembering these last moments and was hoping to miss it but when it happened very suddenly I knew it was the right thing to be there. Marci and I were there for the first and last moments of this life. The struggle now is to move on and continue. Easier said then done. Not more than a few moments has gone by in the last 48 hours where I am not thinking about it. I have been going to Moonlight Beach where Jake liked to go before he got sick. The days have been spent looking at pictures from the past from our albums and from pictures others have sent. Looking at the pictures before he got sick I realized that although Jake survived the cancer for over 2 years he really was not the Jake we knew when he was healthy. Although he still remained kind sweet and funny, he was not the teenager we knew before all the radiation, chemotherapy and humilities that are cancer. Looking at pictures before he got sick I realized this. I believe a big part of Jake was hanging on not just for himself but more for us. Many times especially when he was became worse and unable to do much of anything for himself, he could see our despair, concern and mourning for his future. Still he never once complained but rather would reach over and pat me on the back. He was no longer able to talk due to the steroids but I know the pat on the back was his way of saying that HE was sorry to put us through all of this.
Looking at the pictures of the last two years gives me some solace in knowing that at least now he is not in pain and his body is not disfigured and unfunctional. The hardest pictures are the pictures before he got sick where he was happy and healthy. Cancer literaly destroyed our son and robbed him of his youth. I suppose I have been mourning for over two years. Now that he is somewhere else, I have moments of calm but cannot seem to get over the fact that sick or not I cannot touch him or smell him. He is gone from this world and I will not see him until we meet later. The finality of this is unbelievable and something I doubt I will ever get over. It is as if someone has actually taken a piece of my own body away from me. I seem to walk around in a perpetual permanent fog. We will survive this and make the best of things by carrying on his legacy with good deeds but in the end it will only be survival.