I have hesitated to write this, my first post since Max passed away for multiple reasons. First I worried about over-saturating everyone with another Max post. Second I fear for all my eloquent articulation I will in fact fail to unwrap the required level of emotion. Third for the last several weeks I’ve simply been incapable of writing much of anything, let alone tapping into the rawness required. Yet in the midst of these continued concerns so many people have communicated with me expressing very similar statements, keep writing, keep blogging, people need to hear your story. I shall do my best to carry on, to muster up the courage to continue to share my story.  
Identity

For 9 1/2 years I was Max’s dad, and I played the hand that was dealt to the best of my ability. Every decision that was made over that time span had Max right there in the center. Like a warrior I fought through every surgery, every late night and early morning scare, every extended hospital stay and on and on and on. From the outside looking in people would tell me how in awe they were for how I handled situation after situation, but it’s all I knew. I was a champion for that little boy, I would stand when he couldn’t, my strength would be his and vice-versa. This is all I’ve known for 9 1/2 years.

Look at the dragon slayer lost as all the dragons are gone. The giant killer, who is he when they have all left. Maddox has been so intertwined into my identity, to the point of it being impossible to separate. Yet in those moments on Christmas morning everything changed. Shifting life from present tense to past tense. I will always be Max’s dad but wrestling with the fact that it’s no longer in the ‘active’ sense I struggle to make sense of the hole left in who I am. My identity is in shattered pieces, like a pane of glass scattered across the ground below.