The Long family has just moved to Cedar Park, but already their home is filled with memories of bountiful blessings and overwhelming sorrow.

"I just take one day at a time, one breath at a time," says Heather Long. "I think of him and I know he's my inspiration."

"He" is her son Cal, who died last December after Heather and her husband, Cody, decided to remove his life support. A still-undiagnosed neurodegernative illness made his brain wither until doctors said there was no hope, and nothing they could do.

"I literally live breath to breath," Long says, her eyes filling with tears and her voice welling with emotion. "One minute I'm OK, the next minute crying my eyes out, and I wish I could just hold him one more time, hear him laugh one more time, but then I think about how sick he was, and I would never ever wish for him back under those circumstances."

Long says she understands why Catarina Gonzales is fighting to keep her son on life support at Children's Hospital in Austin.

Emilio Gonzales, 16-months-old, has Leigh's Disease, an incurable metabolic disorder. Doctors say that like Cal, Emilio is terminal and has no hope for recovery.

Children's Hospital officials say they will allow Emilio to stay on life support until April 10, but his mother is desperately trying to find another hospital that will care for him after that deadline.

Long says she understands the heartbreak of watching a child die, but says the decision has to be what's best for the child.

"You just got to love your children enough to know when it's time to let them go," Long says. "My heart goes out to her, she's in a very very tough position and I can imagine she felt helpless or cornered when she's having doctors tell her they're going to cut off life support, but as a mom you have to be prepared to make those decisions."

Long's son Cal began having a problem when he was about 2. He was diagnosed with athetoid cerebral palsy when he was 3, but that isn't what took his life.

Cal continued to deteriorate, losing his ability to walk and eat. Last December, Cal was 5-years-old and weighed only 30 pounds. He was unable to eat or move, and in so much pain he needed constant medication. Doctors said there was no hope.

"I knew my son was dying," Long says. "I felt panic every day. I was fighting against the clock."

She and her husband decided to take Cal home one last time to let him die away from machines, surrounded by love.

When his time came, the house was filled with family and friends who took turn holding Cal and saying goodbye. And finally, mom Heather took him back in her lap.

"My husband was sitting beside me and I was in the middle and our 8-year-old daughter Emily was sitting beside me and she was stroking his hair and telling him it was OK, that his big sister was there and we were telling him how much we loved him and that it was OK to let go," she says through tears. "And right before he passed away he looked at my husband and daughter and I and smiled and then he was gone.

"So as painful as it was, I know it was the right thing, because he was suffering so bad."

Long doesn't say her decision is right for everyone, only that it was right for her, in Cal's situation.

And though he passed away, Cal will remain with his mom, dad and big sister Emily forever.

"When people ask me how many children you have, I still say I have two children," she says. "I have one that's here with me, and one that's in heaven, because he's still my child. He'll always be my baby."