For my son, who was supposed to be born on September 17, 2012.
I loved everything about them. They were boyish and cool--I found so many boy clothes to be so cliche. I wasn't into trucks and cars, but I could 100% get behind these.
Four years ago, we were also at Coachella. I was about 18 weeks pregnant, and it was Jeff's 39th birthday. It was so, so, so friggin hot (I vaguely remember it being about 110 degrees F), and I felt SO pregnant. The day before we left, though, we had our anatomy scan, and there was nothing as exciting in our lives as finding out what the sex of our first child would be. A boy, they said! I'll admit that I was disappointed at first--I'd always wanted a daughter first--like me! But I was also so happy. Because of this:
Jeff was so so excited for that little boy to come. I was too--it just took me a little longer to grasp.
We bought those footies and that Coachella shirt for a little boy that seemed like such a given. We made it to the second trimester! Obviously he'd be wearing the clothes we bought for him soon! In a matter of months!
These two articles of clothing will always be Luke's. I just never anticipated that he'd never wear them, but his two sisters would.
These are the things that still haunt me.
I put these pajamas on Lainey a few weeks ago. And while it's comforting now to put my baby in them, I still long for the one baby that they were first intended for. Unfulfilled wishes and dreams...I'm relieved that they didn't sit unused, forever. But it's still not fair. I still wish I had a picture of him wearing these.
You were so, so wanted, Luke. You still are. You will always be.
In the beginning, there was nothing more painful to me than to look at Luke's dresser and closet--full of clothes, just waiting for him to wear them. It was the ultimate neverending nightmare.
Waiting on someone that just won't show...and every night it seems like there's no tomorrow, not that you'll ever know...
What would i do with them if he was never coming back?
I was forced to pick one thing--one item of clothing--for him to wear at his family viewing and then to be cremated in. Babies don't wear suits in a coffin, do they? Pajamas were pretty much all we had. Who even has to think of these things? Do you have any idea what a terrible, horrific, painful choice that is to make when he'd literally never worn a goddamn piece of clothing in his life? I picked out a different footie pajama--one that said "Mommy Loves Me". Because I couldn't bring myself to part with this one thing of his.
Because I'd already allowed myself to see him in it in my head...and if he wasn't gonna be in it...I just couldn't let it go.
And I don't think I ever will. At this point, both of his sisters have spit up and pooped through it. But it was always his. And the same goes for the Coachella shirt. It was always meant to be his.
The other day I thought about what I was going to do with the baby clothes. We're done having babies. But Luke only had baby clothes. And literally ALL of them hold a pretty special place in my heart. But it's not like I would have kept them all if he'd lived. So why would I keep them all now? Because I have so little left of his presence? That's probably why.
I still don't know my answer to this question. I'm probably going to put them back into the box they came from and sit on it for awhile.
But these two things are going in the special box of his things. Waiting for a little boy that will never come. Whose sisters' faces look just like his did.
Cruel and beautiful.
