2 years

730 days.

That's how long it's been since we said goodbye. 

Actually, I guess maybe the last last time we said goodbye was at the funeral home two days after the hospital...there were a lot of goodbyes though. 

It's so weird to not know what to call today. I say it's your birthday. It's not. We can't even get a birth certificate for you. But it's not really the day you died, either. We knew you were gone the day before. That was the first goodbye. It's so odd to think that your death came before your birth. 

So yeah. I don't really know what to call today. Anniversary?  Death anniversary? I hate saying Angel-versary. I don't know. The second year wasn't as hard as the first. I can say that for certain. But I can still relive that 24 hours in the hospital like it was yesterday. From walking up to the check in desk...getting reassured that everything would be fine. To the silence of that final ultrasound. 

Deafening silence. 

The disbelief is still fresh. I'm still in disbelief. But the physical pain is so far gone now, it hardly seems real anymore. What we went through hardly seems real, and yet the reality is so very grave and terrible and life-altering.

I miss your face. I regret not exploring you more when I held you. I was so afraid to hold you...that you might break more than you were already broken. All I wanted to do was fix you. As a Mom, that's all you want for your children. No one can prepare themselves to hold death in their hands. I know I did all I could, but how do you squeeze in a lifetime's worth of hugs into just a few hours? I knew it was impossible.

Holding you and then watching you get taken away at the hospital, that was the second goodbye.  I tried so hard not to think about where you were going and how and with who.  It was all surreal. I was just making plans for your birth, and there we were, all of a sudden, planning a funeral. 

I still don't understand how we made it through those first hours. Days. Weeks. But somehow, here we are, two years later. We survived.  It's so true that you have no idea how strong you can be until you're forced to be it.

So much has changed in two years.  Outwardly, you can't see our brokenness anymore.  We look like a normal family.  But we will always carry you.  You will always be there.  Your teddy bear will always sit on our shelf.  Here, and not.

We have so much to be happy for, but it's still so hard letting you go.

It seems so simple for everyone else to just move on.  But that will always be impossible for us.  

I miss you. Today and always.