Two Little Froggies

Given how poorly I've slept this week, I should be in bed right now trying to catch some of those elusive little Zs. But instead, I'm sitting here alone in the darkness and relative quiet of our family room, once again pecking away at a keyboard.

As much as Logan loved any and all cars, lately, it's been a story of two little froggies. But I should probably back up a few weeks.

I've been asking God --and Logan-- for signs. Signs that Logan is still out there, somewhere. Signs that there is life beyond what we can see. Signs that we don't live merely to live, but to have life. Signs that despite the hell we've lived through, Heaven still exists, even if I can't see it or feel it or hear it or smell it or touch it.

I asked again this morning when I visited his grave, as I often do after dropping Isaac off at preschool. Today, the cemetary was particularly alive, so to speak, with the cacophonous sounds of life on earth: birds chirping from the highest branches of a pair of nearby towering trees, planes soaring by overhead, cars whizzing along the road below, a maintenance truck transporting pile after pile of dirt to cover a new burial site. I was sure that my plaintive request had fallen on deaf ears.

I should probably know better by now.

When I got home later, I served Isaac and Brady lunch and sat down to check my email. As I glanced across the room, a tiny blue object caught my eye. I mentally flagged it as a choking hazard, and got up, almost mechnically, to move it to higher ground. And I stopped in my tracks as I realized what it was.

Shortly before Logan began preschool last Fall, his teacher, Ms. Holly, gave him a tiny (and I mean itty-bitty) blue plastic frog to commemmorate his status as a member of the Frog Class. Logan loved that frog. He carried it around for weeks. But until today, I'd forgotten about it. Yet there it was, sitting on my family room carpet right out in the open. I don't know how it got there. I don't know why Brady didn't eat it before I saw it. I don't know where it had been for the past three months. But it was there. One little froggie.

The story of the other little froggie began a few weeks ago when I was pulling out of my driveway to take Abby to her dance class one evening. Rather than putting my purse on the passenger seat per my custom, I left it on the seat directly behind me; the seat where Logan would sit had he not had to leave. As I shifted into reverse, my purse began to croak. I was puzzled for a few moments until I remembered the frog light that Logan had 'borrowed' from a nurse friend at CHO several months ago. That thing croaked and croaked for a full minute. And it continues to croak periodically. And yes, it croaked several times today at random intervals, reminding me of its presence in its own froggie way.

It's funny that two little froggies now remind me of my little Sunshine. He was never supposed to be in the Frog Class, after all; had he never gotten sick, he would've been in kindergarten this year. And he certainly never would've borrowed a froggie flashlight from a nurse. Yet somehow, those little frogs are in my heart. They meant something to Logan while he was with us. And they mean everything to me now.