Living life on the edge of fear....

......and finally feeling the desire to jump off.

Our worst nightmares are surfacing. Our hearts and souls and minds and bodies have been tortured beyond belief......and the worst is still yet to come.

Hunter's cancer has returned for a fourth time and we are out of ammunition. His little body has seen every type of chemo, including experimental chemo's and the most potent combinations of other chemo's, and the disease doesn't seem to want to stay away. He has been through 9 rounds of chemo, full body radiation and a bone marrow transplant.........and we are officially at the end of the road. There is nothing left that we can do to save his life.

And because this ferocious cancer won't leave his body, our most beloved and treasured gift in the whole world will soon be taken away from us. Just like that. After 2 1/2 years of battling this horrific, beastly disease - it's finally going to win. Zen and I have never felt so defeated and hopeless and broken in our entire lives. We gave up everything for Hunter and his fight. We stayed positive, we defied all odds, we loved him more than life itself.....and we are still being denied the right to keep our child. I can't even begin to explain what this is doing to us mentally. To know that we only have a limited time left with Hunter and then we will soon have to witness his beautiful spirit and amazing soul slowly leave his body is beyond comprehension. To know that the beast is just waiting at the door......with a grin on his face........and we have no power whatsoever to keep him out.....it's maddening and frightening and so, so, so incredibly heart wrenching and sad. Every single moment that we are not with Hunter, which is only when he is sleeping, we are falling apart. This is truly a tragic ending to such an incredible and heroic fight.

To speak for myself......even though I know Zen is feeling much of the same emotions, I feel completely lost. My hope has been beaten into the ground. I feel as if I no longer believe in miracles and I no longer believe that love conquers all. The wind has been taken out of my sails, the carpet has been forcefully and viciously pulled from underneath me and the brick has officially slammed me in the face - like I've never experienced before. And every five minutes - that brick continues to slam me in the face, harder and harder than the blows before. I feel dark and hollow. I feel a terrible bitterness and an unexplainable anger. I feel wrecked and extremely, emotionally distraught, and I am so, so, so heartbroken.

To know that I will soon no longer be able to hold him, or see his beautiful smiling face or hear his soft, precious voice, or caress his cherished little body is making me go insane. I wanted him with me forever. I wanted to see him grow into the amazing young man he has proven himself to be. I wanted to continue to shower him with love and warmth and tenderness the way we have in the short time that he's been alive. I so, so desperately want to keep him.

He is sleeping right now as I type and I am sitting here sobbing. Every so often, I feel as if it just can't be real......that it's just not happening. That this is just one big misunderstanding and we are, in fact, going to be rewarded for all of the pain and suffering and sadness that we've had to endure over the last 30 months. But, it's real. It's as real and as horrific as it gets. We STILL have him in our life right now and the pain is so completely excruciating. I can't imagine what it's going to be like when he is really gone. I have to grasp onto things now as I walk just to keep from collapsing..............I can't even fathom what's to come.

With all of that said - we are continuing to love on Hunter like never before. We are drowning him in kisses and holding him and squeezing him tight every single second we get. I tickle and smooch his tiny, little toes constantly. I look him deep into his eyes and make sure that he understands when I tell him that mom and dad love him so deeply and that we will ALWAYS be with him, loving him, cherishing him and applauding his amazing and courageous efforts.....wherever he is. We try to get him to smile as many times as we possibly can and are constantly figuring out ways to make his time left the most enjoyable and the most memorable......for all of us.

I guess I should take back the fact that I no longer believe in miracles. The fact that we had Hunter in our life for as long as we did was a miracle in itself. Zen has said several times and I definitely agree........We wouldn't take our time with Hunter back. He has made us better people, he has shown us love that is so deep and so fulfilling and so completely rewarding. He's made us stronger individuals and he's brought immeasurable joy into our lives. Joy that we would have never experienced without him. He has truly made our lives worth living. Zen has also reminded me that this time that we have left with him is a gift. A beautiful, beautiful gift. We know that the end is near and we now get to cherish him with every ounce of our souls.

We have an everlasting love for him that we will carry with us every single moment of every hour of every day. And when Hunter dies........a huge part of Zen and I will die with him. It will be a long time before I can look at his sweet face in photos or watch his videos and not crumble. It will be a long time before his sweet voice in my head will not bring tears to my eyes that will probably flow for days. It will be a long time before I can hear his little footsteps throughout the house and not want to follow them to wherever they lead with hopes that he'll be there smiling and laughing once I reach him. He will go pitter patter on my heart for days and months and years to come, and with each tap I will feel pain. But we've been told before and reminded often that no one cries forever. The amazing amounts of love that we graced upon Hunter and the buckets and buckets of love that I truly believed would conquer Hunter's cancer........will now have to conquer mine and Zen's devastation and pain and give us the strength we will need to press on. Our love is all we have left. Hunter is a legend and is and always will be an inspiration to thousands of people and he will live on in so many peoples hearts. He's a true champion and has shown us all how to live. Live strong, live fearlessly and live with a passion.