02/20/2026
February 20, 2014, our beautiful blue eyed baby boy came into the world . Luke Gary Dunn . He was absolutely perfect . I stared at him in awe as he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen . Those piercing blue eyes were all you could see. It’s so hard to imagine that he would be a 12 year old boy today . I’m sure he would be a little crazy man like his Daddy but I know for certain he’d be a Mama’s boy too . He was my little soul mate . I can still see him reaching for me when I close my eyes .
On his birthday , I try to remember all of the happy times but when you grieve this type of loss it’s hard for your heart to differentiate emotions associated with a birthdate and a death date . They are equally as painful. When I look back at my earlier posts sharing my feelings it’s hard to believe that we would be where we are today . What more words could I come up with to describe what Luke means to me ? My mind reels with all I want to say but I know I have already said it all . It came to mind to share about a thing that happened while we were at Disney in January with the giris. We were watching this little animated show at Epcot where Crush the Turtle interacts with the audience . The kids sit up front and Crush asks for them to raise their hands if they have a question... well that’s all Kelsey needed to hear and her hand quickly went up . She was called on by Crush. “Where are you from ?” he asked . “Glastonbury “ she says lol which was silly as we were in FL. They exchanged small talk . “Who are you here with ?” Kelsey says ,”My mom , my sister , my Aunt and my cousins “ . We waved hello from the audience and that was that .Only it wasn’t .A little later on in the show Crush came back to Kelsey , “I want to meet your creator he says and they came to me in the audience with the microphone. He was adorably funny calling me MJ. Likely assuming that I was far too old to only have just these 2 little 8 year olds , Crush asked me “How many kids do you have?” My heart sunk and I was immediately brought back to another time when the girls were babies and we were on a walk with friends and a nice stranger asked if they were my only 2 and I said “Yes.” I wanted to scream after her to tell her about Luke and I swore I’d never answer that question that way again . But here we were at the HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH. “MJ, how many kids do you have?” “Two” I said forcing myself to smile. That was the appropriate answer under the circumstances but it made me realize that it all comes back to Luke . Here we are having the most perfect , amazing time at Disney with the girls but he is always missing . I was so emotional the entire trip because I truly cherish these moments with the girls because I know what it’s like to have it all taken away . It breaks my heart that Luke never got to experience all these joys in life. 17 months wasn’t enough . I hope he knows that I wanted to scream “THREE!!!” The answer will always be three.
12 years old in Heaven today. May the Dear Lord Bless You , May the Dear Lord Bless You, May the Dear Lord Bless Luke, May the Dear Lord Bless You. You are loved and missed more than I could ever say 💚
