Thirteen

It's official--We should have a teenager.

We don't physically, obviously. I've been here, doing this blog though, for 13 years. Instead of parenting a boy to teenager-dom--as I thought I'd be doing when I found out I was pregnant the first time--I've only had words to write, grief to work through, and girls to parent instead.

I'm mostly out of words at this point. My life is non-stop, with few breaks for deep thoughts to put down here very often. There's so much heartbreak in this world--That's the realest thing I think parenting teaches you. I only vaguely remember the days when I was naive to heartbreak--The real, true, soulcrushing kind. But once you've survived it, you see it, everywhere. And it feels like I maybe absorb it more than others.I don't know. I just know that with every news story of someone being gone from this world...the visceral pain I know that family is going through--I feel it. I've lived through it, and I don't wish it on anyone.

Anyway...I was afraid last week when September hit, that I wouldn't have many words to write here this year. But then Sunday happened.

I've been working through cleaning out the girls' playroom--They still share a room. They need their own spaces now, and it's time to unload many of the toys they haven't touched in forever. Slowly, over the summer, I've been cleaning it out--Purging. I hate it because I'm super sentimental about toys. I remember too much. It's been tough. And Sunday, I got to one of the hardest parts. 

The Barbie house. 

The girls loved this house. They spent so much time decorating it, playing Barbies and LOLs in there. So many gifts from friends and family lived in that house. But now it's been sitting collecting dust. Lena's almost 12 and not interested in Barbies anymore. Lainey isn't far behind. So it's time. I needed to just tear off the band-aid of getting rid of it, so I quickly made a post on our local Buy Nothing group. I knew it would go fast, and within an hour, lots of people had said they were interestedin taking it off my hands. I really wanted it to go to someone who needed it--someone with kids who'd really use it. So I flipped through some profiles and settled on one mom who commented. She said she'd come by that night, and I was relieved. Sad, but relieved. I sat in my feels there that afternoon and just...felt. Felt like childhood is changing--Is it ending? I don't have little kids anymore. They're tweens/almost teens. I should have a teen. He's missing, but even the girls are getting older. Sigh.

Anyway. This mom shows up with 4 kids in her car and I'm immediately relieved that I picked the right person. So we go to load this 4ish-foot dollhouse into her car...and the hatch of her SUV is awkward. Too awkward. Like, nothing we do is going to make this house fit, and with four kids in the car, there really just wasn't any other options. She told me she could come back without the kids, but I told her no, you know what, we have the seats down in our SUV already--We could just put it in there, and I could follow her to her place and drop it off. She agreed.

She tells me the general area of where she lives and we start driving. We get near to where she said she lives, and I realize she's taking a right onto the major street we used to live off when Luke was born. And then after that, she took another right--Into a weird driveway. But it wasn't weird to me--because I've turned into that driveway one million times before--when we used to live at our condo. The one we lived in when Luke died. And then after that...she drove into an alley that I knew. I felt like I got punched in the heart.

This mom lives with her kids in a condo on a smalll street directly across the street from the condo we used to live in. The one we lived in when I was pregnant with Luke, when he died, when we planned his funeral and brought his ashes home. She could literally look out her front yard and see the window that was ours--See his bedroom window. This random lady, who I somehow picked from a list of random people, who then couldn't fit a giant house in her car, so I decided to offer to take it to her random house. And there I was, following her. To where our family began. Somewhere I rarely revisit.

We unloaded the dollhouse, and I hope she didn't notice how choked up I was. I did tell her that I used to live right there in that condo across the street, but stopped there. I drove by the condo as I left, and there's something about physically being there--in the physical spaces where you hold so much space in your heart. I was wistful and sad. 

But also...this was a wink. I needed it so badly. Thirteen years out, I don't feel nearly as connected to Luke's presence as I used to. But Sunday, I felt like he pulled me there--Like his spirit was with me leading me back somehow to the last place he was alive with me ON the exact day I last knew he was alive, 13 years ago. I could have passed this doll house onto anyone else. Anyone else could have had a truck that fit this thing. But no. I found someone who led me right back where we were last together and alive--without any planning on my part. 

These are the things us bereaved parents live for. 13 years later, I don't have nearly as much to say, but I know that you're still around. Thanks for the wink, Luke. 

Happy #13, my sweet boy. I'll always be looking for you.

Filling in that emptiness

Here we are again...Another September 10th.

Deciding what to do for a birthday of someone who isn't here anymore has always been one of the hardest, weirdest loads to carry, Luke. The mental load of being a mom is hard enough, but at least now, with Lena and Lainey being older, they have input on what they want or feel like doing for their birthdays. Your day is always complicated. It always feels like I don't do enough. 

Last night at dinner, I asked the girls what they thought you would want for birthday dessert tonight. They told me it would definitely be Nothing Bundt Cakes--But they couldn't really agree on what your favorite flavor would be. Lainey said vanilla. And then she decided she knew exactly what you would be wearing though: Long Nike socks, black shorts, and a gray Nike sweatshirt with WHITE CROCS🤣. Because what she definitely knows is that you'd be a rizzler, just like her, but older and cooler and 12 years old today. 

I love how Laine is so decisive about her opinions of what you'd be like--It's like she has this made up world in her head where you exist. Or maybe it's just where she wants you to exist. And I always just come back to the reality that the two of you would likely never exist on the same plane together. You and Lena absolutely wouldn't. But in this perfect world, Lainey believes you all do. I wish I could live in that world. Maybe kids understand more about life and death than we ever give them credit for. 

Twelve years out from what is hopefully the worst day of our lives, I still live in shock that any of it really happened. That my entire life would be totally different had you survived. I would likely have whole other sets of activities, of friend groups. But one small, cruel twist of fate, and everything changed. And that's not to say that I don't love my life. I do. I was looking back at pictures from 2012 last night--The days and months after you died. It all feels...empty. The emptiness was almost tangible, even from stupid pictures I had taken with my phone months later. I was in such an awful place--It felt like nothing mattered and everything I had ever wanted for a family was POOF, gone. 

It's such an absolute mindfuck that this is my life now. Full. So busy. Kids driving me crazy just like every kid does to their parents. Birthday parties and soccer practice and too much going on at all times. Twelve years ago, I couldn't see it. I wouldn't allow myself to see it, out of the grief I held for you. 

And that's where all of the truest things ever said about grief land--In the earliest, most shocking days of grief, it's debilitating. A huge rock to carry around in your pocket--a life sentence of heaviness. And 12 years later, you find yourself at IHOP with your kids and husband at dinner on a Monday discussing what kind of cake we should order for you and what you'd be wearing that day. But grief is also a vicious cycle--start with grief, let it sit, let it slide and let life take its course, then feel pangs of guilt--because the grief doesn't feel worse--but you feel like it should. And then you put it back in your pocket, and keep going. With it. Forever. 

Wish you were here having vanilla bundt cake and wearing white Crocs with us today, Luke. Twelve years is a long time without you  

You Were Bigger Than the Whole Sky

It’s your 11th birthday, Luke. I pulled up all 40ish pictures I have of your body’s entire existence here on earth like I always do on your birthday, and I had the good cry that still brings me comfort about you. 

They prove you were here. Not for long—Not long enough at all and not like I expected you to be. But sometimes I feel like I need to prove, even to myself, that you were here. 

Our perfect baby boy, who never breathed a breath…I still don’t know how the worst thing happened to us. I still don’t know how I survived and you didn’t. I know I never will, and I know I can never reconcile the life I thought I was going to live for the nine months we had together, and the life I currently live. 

Lena loves talking about how “if Luke had survived,” they would do so-and-so. It hurts me too much to even say to her that the reality is there would never have been a him-and-her, here. It’s the truth that we live with every day…that this current version of life…would be completely different had you lived. I wonder if I’d recognize anything? Not just who would you have been…Who would I be if you were still here? 

My days feel so much like any normal parent’s days do. But everytime I share you…our story…with someone new, the feelings always bubble to the surface that I’ll always be different. Our parenting journey started so incredibly backward. It was so much trauma. And sometimes I worry that I take all that I still have for granted. I’m not normal. I survived any mother’s worst nightmare…and I have two amazing girls who came from all of that trauma. 

To have been so close to having you…and have it all gone in an instant, I still don’t know how I survived that heartbreak. But I have to think you helped pull me through it somehow, from wherever you are, in whatever form you’re in. 

Eleven years is a lot of life to live without. 

A lot of years to pine about. 

You were more than just a short time. And today, I miss you like I always do. Like I always will. 

The words all start to feel the same, 11 years out. But that’s because the love is the same too. 

Happy 11th birthday, my sweet Luke. 

A decade--And your Golden Birthday

3,653 days. It's been 3,653 days since I last saw your face in person, Luke. 

It's weird--When I was looking up that calculation, I thought it might be more. It feels like more. When I really sit and think about everything that has happened in our lives since that day, it feels like a LOT. Your funeral. The hours and days and weeks and months that dragged on after you died--when we didn't have a clue what the future would hold for us. Helena died not long after you. Then we were pregnant again. Lena arrived. We sold the condo. Moved to another. Bought our house, Lainey came along. First days of school happened. A pandemic. So many more people have come and gone. 

Time seemed to pass so slowly at first--the grief, always waiting there, foaming to the top of everything. 

At first, I had no idea how I would get through my life without you. How this gaping hole in my heart and soul would ever change or feel different. In those first years of birthdays, I put so much pressure on myself--To make sure you were celebrated--That we had a special cake or balloons or went somewhere special. 

I think now, the grief is settled. I know I don't need to do anything specifically to prove that I still love you, or that you were real. Not a single day goes by that I don't think of you or speak of you. You're never far from my consciousness, and while there are definitely times where I see a sign of you, I think the thing that I've come to accept the most, ten years out, is that you're everywhere with me. I literally carry you in my heart. And I hope somehow you feel that.

I guess that's how we carry the losses that mean the most to us over time. I remember someone I spoke with in the first months after you died...told me that his mom and dad had a baby before him--Just like you. And how he grew up his entire life, knowing he had a brother--before him, who he never met. His mom spoke of him, and my friend always felt him there, somehow. I think about that so much more often now, with the girls. Lena is much more in touch with her thoughts about your existence than Lainey is. I can tell that she feels a connection--maybe it's her wish for a brother. But she always includes you. You're her other sibling who she never knew, but wishes so much that she did. 

This year, I don't think I'm as sad. I mean, I'm always sad about you and about how we lost you. The sadness is just...maybe not as acute. It used to feel that I had to take your birthday and just...get through. Do something alone--and then find the thing I needed to do to celebrate you. But for the first time, I don't think the debilitating sadness has set in. Tomorrow, we'll go to the baby jacaranda tree we had planted at our local park, have some cake, and the kids will inevitably be crazy. 

And I'll think about how at this time, ten years ago, hardly any of this existed. Life has moved forward, so far in time, without you. And yet your mark is on everything. So much of my Now is imprinted with everything that happened because of you, and for that, I'm forever grateful. You made me a mom. Your face is forever etched into my mind. And even though I don't have nearly as many words to say about you as I did ten years ago, I still feel that longing for you. Who you would have turned out to be. I wish we had a chance to make memories together, on the outside. 

For now, I'll take the relief that I feel being ten years away from the Hardest Thing--leaving you there in the hospital, seeing your face for the last time. 

I hope I get a sign from you, tomorrow, sweet boy. I'll be looking for it.

The unnatural order of things

Last week, we were at my parents' house as we usually are on Thursday nights. We were talking about boring adult things in the living room, and it was getting late. Lainey came in, crawled up behind me sitting on the couch, and fell asleep. 

She was almost completely upside down--Her head sank slowly as she fell deeper into sleep, and she started wedging herself between my back and the couch cushion, so I moved over to let her breathe. 

And I looked at her face. Jeff did too. And we both saw Luke.

I don't think there's anything that really ever prepares you for that moment when, as a parent of a dead baby, you see your dead baby in your very-much-alive child. But that's how siblings go, right? There's been so many times in my life I've been confused for my sister. And it's normally a SUPER annoying thing as a young kid, but then it turns into sort of an endearing thing as you realize your siblings are kind of your best friends as you trudge through life together. 

But this? When the face you're actually seeing is an alive 5-year-old, and the one you accidentally see is a dead newborn who you said goodbye to almost 4 years before the 5-year-old was born? It's that typical mindfuck that comes with being in this shitty club. Most parents see their kids grow--their features change and develop over time--but they usually stay similar, even as you age. How do you ever reconcile seeing your dead newborn's smooshed cheeks and lips in your Kindergartener?

I guess this is the sort of shitty math and reconciling you find yourself still noticing, 9 years after your first child is born still. 

Something that's really...struck me...this past year and a half of living through a pandemic is that most people don't understand the gravity of surviving the unnatural order of real, life-altering loss. Being the person left here, still alive, left to keep moving forward is usually soul-crushing. Guilt inducing. Isolating.  

Yes. All of these things get less heavy over time. But then again, I'm still over here seeing my dead baby's face in the places I least expect it. Trauma does that to you. And I guess in some ways, I feel lucky--To have seen his face and remembered it so well at all, nine years after the last time I saw it for the first and last time. 

Recognizing the unnatural order...of having to say goodbye to your own child while you still have tons of life to live? It's a difficult future to face and build around. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nine years later, what I know, is that if there was anything I could have done? To avoid all of this heartache? To have maybe changed what happened to Luke? I would have done it. No matter how far of a fetch it was. No matter how crazy I thought doctors were. Because it would have maybe meant saving me, us, from the lifetime of mindfucking grief that comes with the death of your own child. 

So I guess lately, I'm not understanding how there are people in this world that wouldn't do anything they could to stay here...to keep their loved ones safe, to see the ones they love grow up or get old. If I'd had some sort of vaccine to take that would have saved Luke, or at the very least have given us better chances? I would've done it. It's literally crazy-making watching people decide they'll just take their chances with a completely unknown disease. 

You know what other thing had incredibly low odds? Stillbirth. Your baby dying full-term. It's like, 0.1% odds, I think? I learned that somebody is always that 0.1%. It was us. 

Maybe for some, taking that chance only comes around out of desperation, or when it's too late. I don't know. But I know that witnessing so much grief swirling around in the world right now hurts. And I think it might strike me a little bit deeper because I've understood grief and odds like 0.1% at a visceral level for nine years. 

If you're lucky, you can brush off devastating things that happen to other people because they don't happen to you. That's luck. But the thing is, you don't get to call your luck. No one asks for shitty things to happen to them. They just do. 

I can promise that when they do happen for you, you'd most likely do anything to change your circumstances. Bargaining--I think that's called the Bargaining stage of grief (even though those stages of grief are bullshit because they usually all just happen concurrently or in weird orders). It's real. And I've seen so many stories lately about people who are/were full of regret. 

I can't say that I have tons of regret about Luke...Because what happened to him was such a freak accident. I wish I'd gone in sooner. Maybe that would've given us a chance. I don't know.

But...I guess all that to say, we all think we're invincible. Until we're not. And we're desperate to change the outcome. 

I wish I had a chance to change our outcome, Luke. 

I can't believe it's been 9 years since I've seen your face and yet I can remember what it looks like like it was yesterday.

I hope you and Finn are celebrating together in the stars, tonight. 

Eight

Eight years. How have we already been separated by eight YEARS?

2012 seems like a lifetime ago, when I sit down and think about it. It was the last year I went to Coachella. The last full year we lived in our condo. We've moved twice since then. And of course we've had two girls, and now they're in first grade and preppy-k. The school years have begun for them. Eight years ago, Jeff and I had just begun our journey into parenthood--With no idea what was in store for us. 

Lately, I've been feeling that I live my life with a neverending sense of heartache, just below the surface. And I'm not sure if the current events of the world would feel as heavy if we'd never lost you, Luke. Maybe I'd still have that sense of invincibility I had when I was just 33 and had never had kids before. Things were simple then. 

Everything feels heavy now. The world seems like it's swirling everyone around in an intense washing machine filled with nothing but heartache. When COVID-19 first hit California back in March, when our world first shut down, I felt that impending sense of doom hard. I think that once death comes for you on a deeply personal level like it did with us, you're reprogrammed to understand and acknowledge that fear fully and without question. 

I carried death, and I witnessed and held my own child, dead. 

So I do have a healthy respect for death. It's not something that just happens to other people for me--It's mine. It's caused me and Jeff permanent heartache. So while I've spent the last eight years carrying it with me, learning how to operate my life differently and find joy and happiness where I can, I still feel it close, always.

For those first few months of shutdown, I felt that doom hard. I felt like every step I took outside of my home and people might be the straw that breaks the camel's back. I knew I had to respect what this disease does to people with diabetes or blood pressure issues, since they're problems we live with at home. 

And so I've felt a super-acute heartache since this all started, and I guess it hasn't really stopped. Seeing people devalue actual human lives lately has crushed a lot of my own spirit. This year, on your birthday, Luke, I feel numb. My heart hurts. And maybe it's just because there's so much loss happening for so many people right now--I don't really know. But I know that when I see others hurting, I tend to absorb it. It's sort of what I do. It's not great for me, personally, but I guess it's my way of helping others find the light out of this heartache. I've done it. I've somehow survived eight years without my firstborn son. A lot of times I feel like I'm built for this. I can endure and I can officially take steps to keep going because I've done it before. 

And yet...it's still hard. Even when you're a pro, even when you know how it goes. Even when you're accustomed to death being at your door or inside your house--It doesn't get easy. Maybe the expectations do. But when I sit down and take a deep hard look at our pictures from our day in the hospital with you, Luke, my heart still hurts. It always will. And I can keep going and endure that heartache and be a mom to these beautiful, crazy girls (even if I have no idea what I'm doing on a near-hourly basis) but still miss you like crazy. 

The heartache of missing out on what you would have been will always exist in that hole you left in my own heart. That's the reason this never ends. Love lost is heartache. And some love is deeper than others. 

I'll always wonder who you would have been and  I'll always have cookies or cake or something to celebrate our brutiful life. Just wish you could ever have been here to celebrate it with us. 

Fall skies and invisibility

Its hard for me to comprehend that I’ve been writing here in this space for 7 years now.

Seven years seems like such a long time. Closer to a decade than just a year. So much life happens in seven years.

And yet here we are. It’s September. I feel it in my bones, as I always do. When I’m driving, I notice the skies changing more than anywhere else. And seeing the change in sunlight always brings that sense of longing back around. It’s easier to not think about during the spring and earlier summer. But it’s so pronounced for me during the last weeks of August and first weeks of September.

Most days now, I’m a normal mom. But seven years later, my rainbows are growing up. They’re not babies anymore. Seeing them growing and moving forward in life is one of my greatest joys.

And yet the hardest truth now is that you’re always missing, Luke. I think that’s the part that hurts the most. Your invisibility.

I have so much to show for Lena and Lainey. Probably too much? Lena is constantly writing me notes on scraps of paper and shoving them in my purse or pockets. Lainey makes the hugest messes. They both have friends—school friends even. And I think the part that’s the hardest about walking these new steps as a parent is knowing that most people who know us as a family don’t know our story. Some might hear Lena talk about her brother and get confused. I mean...she’s confused too. The other day, out of nowhere, she asked me how old Luke was when he died. I’m not one to dance around the truth, because I know my kids are capable of understanding hard things. But it’s still hard to explain the hard details to her.

I told her he died right before he was born. “So he didn’t get to live?” she asked.
“No.” I said.
“But why did he die? Was something wrong with him?”
“No,” I said. “It was just a freak accident. Like how sometimes bad things happen to people when they don’t expect it. Like that.”

Lena’s accepting of my answers for now, but I know she doesn’t understand everything yet. She’s never had to see a mama be very very pregnant and not get to bring a baby home with her own eyes. I’m thankful for that. Because I want her to be naive for a little while longer. But she’ll understand someday.

But that intangibility is what gets me the most these days. I relate more and more to the title of Elizabeth McCracken’s book An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination more and more every day. Because that’s what Lena and Lainey are to me. They’re replicas. Of Luke, who never had a chance to live and breathe—who was so so close...and yet. Not. He never cried or crawled or took a step. I carried him for 39 weeks, and all he knew in life was me.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe he wasn’t a figment of my imagination when I have so little to show of his life.

He’s my first baby. Nothing can ever change that. But it’s still heartbreaking knowing that every new person I’ve met since he died never knew him. and never can. There isn’t anything new to add to his story. And there will never be.

The heaviness of all that still weighs on me. That’s the part of all this that I’m quite sure never disappears. Parenting is hard enough. But carrying the weight of his invisibility...his intangibility...along with everything else? That’s the load that’s hardest, seven years later. And I think the expectations some people have...of "getting over" this. Or moving on...are absurd. Because that's the thing. Once you've survived something traumatic--giving birth to death, losing someone in an unexpected way...You're forever changed. It's not something you can "get over." You change. You keep living your life. You build on what you have left. Because that's all you can do. There's no other option. And make no mistake--My girls are the world to me. They mean just as much as Luke does. All three are ours, and always will be. Just like any parent loves ALL of their children. Just because one doesn't exist on this earth any longer, you don't just give up on loving them. Love never dies.

I want it to be known that he’s our first baby. We’re a family of five. You just can’t see one of us. We have mementos for him, and boxes of team t-shirts for Walk to Remember and leftover funeral programs with his tiny stats in them.

I just wish all of that was easier for the world to see and not forget...or even ever know. I can see how this gets more and more inevitable through the years...and of course time makes it easier. But it’s never easy. It’ll never be ok, and I guess that’s just ok at this point.

Life is brutiful. Brutal and beautiful. And seven years on, that's the way it is.

SIX.

Six years seems like...a LOT.

A lot of years. Past one. Past three. Past FIVE.

So much time, that when I came back to this place--The blog that I write to you at? The background widget I used was gone. I found it on some free website back in 2012. And six years later, the host had taken down their page--it just disappeared.

Just like your heartbeat did six years ago.

I feel like I’ve said all the words that have ever been said about loss and life and grief here. And yet I still keep coming back. I think that’s the thing that I hope people understand. That somehow, through years and life and sadness and happiness, you will still always be mine, Luke. But there will never be “getting over” this. It will never be fixed. When trauma strikes you, you’re changed. There is no going back. So what was left of me—of us—from that day six years ago? I like to think that I’ve come a long way. We’ve built a family—one that will always include you. You were first, and without you, there is no Us.

Our family is made of five of us. You were the first.

It’s grief season for me. I can feel the start of September in my bones now. I wonder if it would be so pronounced if you’d have been born in the neverending heat of summer? The change in seasons signals the change I went through—The season that came when everything I thought I had had fallen apart. The marked end of summer marks the end of our time together—every year—and when the sun starts turning a golden yellow and the leaves start falling from the trees, I revisit the first hours and days and weeks and months I spent without you. Everything feels more settled now. Maybe more numb. These feelings come yearly and I know what they feel like. The pain is less blunt now. I know it will always be there—the hole you left in my heart. No one should have to make birthday cakes for their dead children. You never think you’ll be that person until suddenly, you are.

On this day six years ago, I knew it was the beginning of a new season of my life— with our first baby. The season that changes everything. And now, six years later, I feel like I’m on the start of the next season. The baby things are gone now—the girls are kids. The baby stage is over, along with the pregnancies and births. And I’m relieved. I know there are endless possibilities of more heartache to be had in life—but to have survived this much so far...it’s a relief.

I still look for signs that you're still with us, somehow. Tonight, we got one. We took the girls to dinner, and as we climbed back in the car, the radio turned on. It was on Pearl Jam radio (it's not necessarily locked there in my car like it is in Daddy's car...) and Light Years was playing. The song we printed in your funeral program The song that...says everything we feel. It's not a song that gets that much play., especially when it comes to their live shows that get played. But there it was. There you were.

I still wish I didn't have to look for instances of your presence...I still wish you were here--that you made it. I don't think that's ever going to be different. But I can see the beauty you brought us in life. Without you, there would be no Lena or Lainey. I would never have connected with so many of my favorite mamas in the world. Women I wish I never met and yet am so glad I know now. What a strange situation to find friendship in...

Anyway. I'm sharing a pic of the three of us from the day we finally saw your face, six year ago. We don't have many pictures of you that don't scream "death", but this is one of you and me and Daddy that shows exactly what it felt like, meeting you. A satisfaction that labor was finally over and we did it. And a sadness...a thick veil...on both of our faces. A resignation that this was real. You can see both of us wishing that this wasn't the end. I think I still make this face when I think of you. These were the first minutes of our life without you. Six years later, I can still take myself back to this scene and the tears still fall.

I'm so proud to be your mama, Luke. But I'm still so sad that I'll always have tears left to cry for you.

Hard Pills to Swallow

Almost five years have passed. FIVE. Half a decade.

It's been half a decade since I last held you, Luke. Since we last saw your face.

I've been thinking a lot about things that I've gotten the hang of over the past five years. Grief is a constant adjustment. It's always changing and life gets both more complicated and yet more simplified. I know the ropes. I know how it feels to see someone join this community of parents who've lost a baby. I know what to offer them. I have rote responses now for the questions that get asked to every parent everywhere.

"How many kids do you have?" they ask.
"Three," I say.
"Oh, how old are they?"
"My youngest is 18 months, my oldest is almost four, but I also had a son, who was stillborn."

And that usually kills a conversation. Sometimes it doesn't and I make a fast friend. I know I can say the words without crying (at least most of the time) and it makes me proud to be able to mention all of my kids in one statement. I've gotten past the point of caring how it makes the other person feel to talk about death, because my reality will always contain my dead firstborn. It's not something that I get to walk away from, or ever be OK with. He will always be gone. I will never have more memories of him to share with people. You were born, and you were not alive, but you still count as my child.

So I've learned how to swallow most of those pills. Over the past 5 years, I've figured out how to present myself and my circumstances to people. I also know that I can't put you away, Luke. You matter too much to me to tuck away into our past. I need people to know that you existed. That you were wanted and that living without you will always hurt. That a piece of my heart will always be missing. Sharing you, while hard, is my job as your mama. I don't have pictures or stories or baby books filled with your milestones, Luke, but I say your name. That pill is less hard to swallow now, five years out.

But some things still hurt. 

Babies are still named Luke. There will always be some that are the age he should be and I'll meet them over my lifetime. 

Babies are still being born on Luke's birthday.

Snooki has her friggin kid, and he's still alive.

Those are still hard pills to swallow. If there's one thing I understand now, 5 years out, it's that I might be bitter about some things forever. I didn't just lose you as a baby. I lost you being a 5 year old on your first day of school. I lost a little boy who might've played little league or loved karate. I lost a teenager who thinks his mom is the most annoying person in the world. And I lost a grown man who I'd hopefully get to see grow up and be a wonderful person.

I never got to see you grow, Luke. I never even got to see your chest rise and fall with air in your lungs. It was all just taken away.

All of that, but on the flip side, you were the first of the grandchildren born to my family. And now, there are 7 more. That's how much has happened in 5 years. And right now, it's hard to think about how empty our lives were when we lost you. But it's still hard to think about the fact that if you weren't gone, Lena and Lainey wouldn't be here. Our lives have diverged down so many different paths because of what happened to you. And it's brutal and beautiful at the same time.

The sun is lower in the sky--Literally as of this week. For me, it signals your birthday. Five years, sweet boy. At this time 5 years ago, I was in labor and we just wanted to meet you...even if you were already gone.

A death date before a birth date. That's still the hardest pill to swallow. 

The season is changing.

They were changing three years ago on this day too.

I was excited. There was so much to look forward to. Fall was coming...Summer was still blazing, but the sky was different--Like it is when it's Fall. The sun was starting to set earlier, and the days got a tiny bit shorter...

And we were supposed to be parents in about a week. A WEEK.

I can feel that change in my bones every year now. It used to mean the holidays were coming--The only "seasons" that California really gets are when the days get shorter.

But now that change of season comes with a tinge of wistfulness. Remembering that my heart is still broken. Realizing that it will always be broken.

People always say that each of their children hold a place in their heart. A place that grows and evolves over time, if they're lucky. Luke's place never got moved into. Even though Lena occupies SO MUCH of her own little space, his space still feels hollow. Lena has evolved into her own tiny personhood. She shares who she IS. She has opinions. She challenges me and shows love back to me. I never even got to hear your cry, Luke.

The tears and outbursts are fewer and farther between now. But as I feel September and your birthday come on, it's hard not to feel weepy. Still. I still feel sorry for myself and for missing out on an entire life that was so close to being here but never made it.

Three years ago, my life changed forever. The happily-ever-after story that seemed so attainable for everyone else was suddenly no longer a thing for us.

Who would you be today, Luke? A toddler with so many opinions, most likely. Sometimes I look at Lena and try to add 15 months onto her and project what you'd look like now. Would you know as many words as her? Would you be into trucks or dolls? What would your favorite cartoon be?

I'm more at peace with what happened now, three years on. I can function like a normal mom. I have a child that people see with their own eyes, and they recognize me as a mother. But I still struggle when I feel like you're a secret to the world. A secret that only my inner circle knows and keeps in their thoughts. The invisible life that never got lived.

Now the tears are coming.

Grief never ends. That's the thing I've come to understand the most these past three years. Tragedy like ours cuts a hole in your heart that can be uncovered with a single thought or memory. Sometimes I feel like my wounds are scabbed and healed, but then I'll think of your face on this day, three years ago. And it's a fresh wound again. You can never heal from grief. It's always there. Some days it's easier to handle than others, and that's about all you can predict. I do have joy in my life again. I smile. I laugh. There's so much to be happy about. I don't wake up in the middle of the night with tears in my eyes anymore.

But there's been three years without you. How can you feel so far away, and yet so close?

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One month from today, we'll be walking in our 4th Walk to Remember. Forever Footprints is a wonderful organization that takes care of families like us by providing training to hospital staff, offering books, memory boxes, support groups, and so much more to those who are going through what we went through. If you're local and would like to join us, or if you're not and would like to register as a virtual walker, you can sign up below--Join our team Luke's Skwalkers.
OC Walk to Remember 2015 Registration

And if you'd just like to make a donation in Luke's name, we have a fundraising page here: Luke's Skywalkers

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. 

September

It's getting close to your birthday--What should have been your second birthday--and things are starting to feel different.

The time warp of grief and loss is so confusing at first. You relive moments leading up to and after the loss so often.  The freshness is constant. 

But lately, I feel like losing you was so long ago, Luke. 

The other day, I came to a crazy realization, after seeing Lena's weekly development email from Babycenter.  Lena will be exactly 39 weeks old on your second birthday. We lost you at exactly 39 weeks.  Which basically means that she was born on the same day that you were conceived.  On your second birthday, Lena will have been alive with us twice the amount of time that we got to spend with you. 

That makes my head spin just thinking about it.

I guess that's probably why I feel like it's been so long since we parted. So much has happened. Our lives are so different. I know Lena so well now. She has a personality and she's adorable but challenging and trying to walk. So much happens in the first year of parenthood. And it goes by so fast, and it's so intense. 

We missed all of this with you. I still think about that on a daily basis. I still wonder what kind of personality you'd have. If Lena looks like you would have. But I think the hardest thing to come to grips with is the fact that I'll forever grieve the family that we should have been. It's so hard to imagine our lives without Lena at this point...and without you being gone, she likely wouldn't be here. Without you being gone, I might never have had a daughter. Which is insane, because at this point, that's all I know. And though I have a son, I might never know what it means to raise a son.  

Grieving all of that is still hard. 

The happiness that Lena has brought us is immeasurable. I honestly don't think that I'd feel as much closure with what happened to you if she wasn't here. Which in turns rips my heart out for all of those parents who lose their babies and are never given another chance...

There's an element of healing in the fact that we still get to be parents. We still get to have all the experiences we should have had with you...just with your sister. It's another chance, thank god. Because I don't know what I'd be feeling today, nearly 2 years out, if we were still struggling. 

The life that we live now puts you in the background so often. We know we are a family of 4, missing one, but outwardly, we're only a family of 3. I wish I could be one of the lucky ones that gets to count out their kids as they load them in the car, but I'll never get that chance.

We're making the best of what we have.  I wish I had more time to plan something special for your second birthday, sweet boy. I've set up our team with this year's Walk to Remember, but that's about it. 

So this is what it's like to be two years out from the day your life is forever altered. The dullness makes me sad, in a way. Fresh grief feels right. The sadness connects us. But here? I feel so much how you're still a part of me--a part of our story. But it's just a dull ache connecting us now. 

For Luke's second birthday, I would love it if you're reading this if you could either join our team to walk  with the OC Walk to Remember on October 4 in Tustin or make any donation in his name to our team, Luke's Skywalkers. Just to know that others are thinking of him in some way on his birthday on September 10 will make all the difference in the world...

11 months...or one month away from a year

How have we come to August 10 already?

How has it been almost an entire year since we both met and said goodbye, Luke?

I remember this month last year so well.  We were so busy getting ready for your arrival--we had your baby shower.  And we worked hard on getting all the things that you supposedly NEED for a newborn.  We ordered a rocker from Babies R Us.  And we hoped it'd get here in time for your arrival.

It got here the same day as the last time we heard your heartbeat.  Two days before we lost you.

I don't know where the past year has gone.  So much has changed.  In so many ways, you've caused a lot of that change.  We sold our house, and we just moved into a single story house.  It's awesome and perfect, and I wish you were there with us.

And then there's the fact that I'm 4.5 months pregnant.  We found out about 3 weeks ago that you're going to have yourself a little sister, Luke.  I was torn either way, about what sex this baby would be.  But I think I've come to the realization that I'm glad this one's a girl.  I won't ever ever feel like this baby is replacing you in any way.  You will always be you, and she'll always be herself.  I will have a son and daughter.

What sucks is that we could've had the perfect family--Everyone dreams of having both a boy and a girl and calling it a day.  I know I did.  Now...It is what it is.  We'll always be missing our boy, but we'll have our girl.  Strangers on the street won't know that...and that's what's going to feel the most hollow.

The first year...almost here.

During the next month, I'm going to make it a point to raise money in your name for The OC Walk to Remember.  I hate that we won't be able to spend your first birthday together--eating cake and opening presents.  So this is all that I have left--Raising money to help others who have been put into the same terrible situation as we were with you.

A couple of weeks ago, I received a letter from the Office of Vital Records in Sacramento.  I've been waiting for this letter for a long time.  Since last November, when I submitted the form for your certificate of stillbirth.  I'm sure no one really knows that when your baby is born without a heartbeat,  you don't get a birth certificate.  You walk away with just a death certificate. It's like you were never alive.  And that hurts.  so I submitted for the certificate of stillbirth--mostly because that's all we have left to ask for.  I sent in the form, and the $20 for a copy.

So when I opened that envelope, and saw the sentence "NO RECORD FOUND", obviously, my heart broke.

I was expecting the certificates enclosed.  And I was greeted with that.  No reason why.  Nothing.

I called up the office Thursday.  And I sort of lost it on them.  I asked them how it was possible for me to be receiving it.  We HAVE a death certificate.  How can there be NO RECORD?  No record of your existence that day in the hospital? I gave birth to you at 5:29am on September 10. 

I was given the standard bureaucratic answer.  And then more explanation that broke my heart even more.  There are so few stillbirths in each county, that they're gathered up and submitted by the county they occurred in in one batch every six months.  I must've submitted it on the end of the six month cutoff.  And so your birth/death probably didn't get submitted to Sacramento until the NEXT 6 months cutoff.

When I told him it's been almost a year since your death, he told me that it's possible that Orange County hadn't submitted them for either period, and maybe they'll just submit a year's worth of these records...THAT'S how few there are.

I started choking up when I explained to him that that was disappointing...that I'd hoped to have the certificate for your birthday.  I told him that it hurt to feel like your birth/death wasn't even submitted yet...like it was incredibly unimportant.  Like it never happened.

He said he totally understood and told me he was very sorry...

You were important to us.  So important to us.

It hurts that our situation is so rare, the county doesn't even care enough to submit them very often.  Especially considering how much more this means to me than just a normal parent that gets their alive-child a standard birth certificate.  I understand that they need it more than me.  But I think my heart my need this more then they do.

Anyway.

11 months.  I wish I hadn't learned so much about stillbirth in these past 11 months.  But if there's anything I can do, it's to help raise money for a cause that supported me when I needed it most that day in the hospital and after.

For Luke's first birthday, I'd love to be able to raise at least $1000 for the OC Walk to Remember.  I'm trying to liken this to getting him a first birthday present.  But instead, you'll be helping others in my area and beyond (now that they're associated with the STILL Project) who need this help.  You can find our donation page by clicking the picture below...


And thanks to all of you who have supported us this past year.  It's been a year of a lot of downs, but even some ups.  And we couldn't have done it alone. 

10 Months? How?

The other day in therapy, it really hit me how close to the 1-year mark we are, Luke. 

Almost one entire year without you.  Almost one entire year that your existence has been missed.  Greatly.

10 months feels like an eternity.  And at the same time, these past ten months were crystal clear in my memory.  It's like my brain is working overtime trying to magnify and remember the short, fleeting moments we got to spend together. Because the farther away we get from September 10, 2012, the less discernible those moments will become.  And so I feel like I have to do all I can to remember.  To keep those memories for the rest of my lifetime.

These next few weeks are going to be an emotional rollercoaster for me.  Both of your cousins are due to be born soon.  I should be chasing a 10-month old who's probably crawling around, but instead, I will be waiting for their calls...packing up our condo to move...and wishing that you could be here to meet them and experience all of this change that's happening in our lives.  But it's going to be without you.  Your cousins will never get to meet you or know who you are.

But that's not going to stop us from celebrating you.  I want to make you a first birthday cake in September. Like I would have if you were here.  

Your first birthday is going to be here before I know it. I'm not making plans about how I'll feel, but if there's one thing I know, it's that this pain in my heart is never going to go away. It will dull, I'm sure.  It already has. But it will never be gone. And I don't want it to be. 

I miss you. Even knowing that we'll have another baby soon doesn't change that. I'll always miss you. You can count on that. 

9 Months, and Getting ready to sell...

We've been getting our condo prepped the past few days to put on the market to sell.

There's a mix of emotions happening for me right now...

Obviously, our realtor asked us to declutter our house.  I knew this was coming...but the extent to which we really needed to go didn't really hit me till last week, as I sat boxing up things and putting them away.

The pictures on our built-in--Of the 3 of us at the hospital.  Your teddy bear that holds your ashes.  The rose from the OC Walk to Remember that we dried.  It's all still out.

And I somehow have to put most of this away for now.

I understand the reasons, and I have gotten it put away.  But pulling it all down right that second made me cry.

This is where our story began.  And soon (hopefully), we'll be moving forward to somewhere else.  It's all for the best, I know that deep inside. But giving it up to get there is a hard notion to come to grips with.

I opened the drawers in your dresser, Luke.  It's doing things like that that make me cry and miss you the most.  I don't do it very often.  It holds the most tangible things that were supposed to be part of your existence.  Socks.  Hats.  Swaddlers.  Tiny shoes.

It's so unfair--how we have so many things meant for a baby who will never arrive. How we just can't know if we'll get to use any of your things in the future. 

How wrong it will feel giving these things to anyone else--even a sibling.

There are books on your bookshelf that we were supposed to read to you.  But now they'll be your brother or sister's someday, hopefully.  

It still hurts that you never got the chance to see any of it.  Especially because all of it was picked out specifically for you.

Taking down your Star Wars mobile that's hanging from the ceiling is probably going to be the hardest part.  I don't know why, but it's probably because it was the first handmade gift that one of my very best friends made for you.  I remember thinking about how excited I was when Kelly sent that to us--that everything was finally coming together--and this piece--it was SO PERFECT.  In every way.  I haven't gotten to that part, yet.

It all just feels so empty now.  The love is still there, but it's different.

I'll be sad to move out of our condo sometime soon.  But at the same time, I'm happy to move forward.  Hopeful.  I know that many things will never change being here.  Our neighbors will always be terrible.  This will never be a good condo to have a child in.  And you will always be gone.

But to start somewhere fresh, moving forward as who we are now, with you in our hearts, feels like the most right thing to do.  So while I will miss everything that we've created here for our family (that includes you), I know that we can take you with us anywhere, always.  

I can't believe it's been 9 months.  It feels like eternity at this point.  So much of life has moved forward. 

I fear what this will feel like 3 months, 1 year, even 10 years from now.  Because I'm scared that I'll feel so far away from having lost you.  That day in September was our only day together.  And I'm scared I'll somehow forget it. 

Rational-Me knows that's impossible, though.  
 

8 Months & Mother's Day Without You

Lately, I've felt a loss for words, Luke.

I'm not sure what it is, exactly, but there are a lot of things running through my mind.  Mostly, I'm just feeling spun around by life.

I'll be honest Luke.  It's so so simple to just...move farther away from you.  I don't have a choice--Life continues moving in a forward direction.  There is no going backward.  Your existence was so fleeting.  And I feel like now, at 8 months, it's getting completely intangible.  I look at your pictures more often lately--I think just to give your existence validation.

8 months is a long time apart.  But in the grand scheme of life, it's just a tiny dent in time.  And already, the distance seems so far.

Sometimes I'm not sure how ready I am to feel that far away from you.

I'm somehow still standing.  After all of this.  That which I thought would surely slowly kill me...has only made me stronger.  It's true that you don't know how strong you are until you're forced to be.  Facing down this neverending sadness--and trying to beat it with happiness in life is a hard game to continue playing.  And it's forever.  That part is daunting--still.  And I think it always will be.

But I'm lucky in that I have amazing, truly wonderful family and friends who won't let you be far away.  Your Auntie Lauren recently made the most amazing shadowbox for your new cousin's room with keepsakes to remind your cousin of you.  Just knowing that that little baby will grow up knowing about you fills my hole in my heart--if only just a little tiny bit.

There's so much happiness to be experienced in life.  And I don't want to miss out on any of it.  If your death meant anything...It's helped me to find the beauty in life.

Sunday is our first Mother's Day without you.  The first of a lifetime of Mother's Days that will have a tinge of sadness--every. single. year. Even someday, when we have another child (children?), we'll always be missing one.  That hurts.

You made me a Mom first.  And you'll always be that child for me.  There's no changing that. But this year, Mother's Day will be a harsh reminder of what I don't have.  We were so close--but we still lost you, and the fact that we never got to spend a Mother's Day together will always hurt.

So much is lost.

But you'll be at the front of my thoughts on Sunday, Luke.  And I'll be thinking of all other Moms who are spending their Mother's Days without their babies and children.  I'll also be thinking about all the other wonderful, amazing women out there who want nothing more but to become Moms...but can't, for whatever reason.

It's sad that a day that should only be happy and wonderful and thankful can feel like a knife in so many of our hearts.  I wish we could all be new--never having experienced the cruel moments that life can dole out.

But at least we know that we're not alone.

I miss you every day, Luke.  And I'll never stop loving you.

 

7 months

We're now past the point of half a year without you.

It feels sort of unbelievable.  But it also feels like we held you a lifetime ago, Luke.

You'd be using a sippy cup by now.  You'd be eating mushy foods with your fingers.  You might have more than a few teeth.  I look at people I know or see who have babies born around the same time as you...and I'm in disbelief at how big they got so fast.

It goes so fast.

It still hurts that I'll never get to see you grow that fast.  I think about the fact that I will be doing these comparisons with other people for the rest of my life.  Oh look....there's a class of 4th graders playing on a playground.  Or seeing friends' kids get their driver's license in 2028.  I'll always find a way to tie some kids' ages back to you.

Tomorrow I turn 34 years old.  I hate saying it, because I don't necessarily feel it, but I feel like I'm old.  In comparison to other moms and women who have more complete families, I feel old.  I feel worn down and behind.  But for all the wrong reasons.  Most women my age feel run down from their children.  I feel worn down by my life without a child. 

That feeling snuck up on me fast.  Last year...I thought, well, at least I'll have 1 child before I'm 35.  And I was fine with that.  I would be fine with just having you if that's all that came to be.

But now...I hate saying that I can't be fine with that.  I wish I could say that I'd be fine if you were the only child I had in my lifetime.  But without you here, that feeling changed.  I know what it feels like to be a Mom now.  To love your child without ever getting anything in return.  But the feeling is incomplete.  Because you're gone.

Tomorrow I should be 34 years old with a 7 month old son.  

The forever-ness of this pain is hard to think about. It's duller even now, for sure, 7 months later.  But the tears still flow freely depending on the day or my mood.  I'm able to find happiness though...and I find that lately, I'm even excited about the future.  But it's hard not to think about your existence being further and further in my past.  I'm working hard on being in my present--wherever that is.  And trying to find anything good in the future.  Whether that means helping fund raise for OC Walk to Remember, making special gifts for future nieces and nephews...or celebrating your short presence.

Last month, your Dad and I went up north to visit your Auntie Ali and Uncle Andy in Portland.  We planted a whoooole bunch of trees for you with a group called Friends of Trees.  It was an absolutely amazing experience, and it felt amazing to do something so special for both you AND the Audubon Society.  You have your own special place now--and it's beautiful.  I even marked the exact GPS location with my phone...so we can always find your place--whenever we visit.  Right now, there are a whole bunch of Western Red Cedars up there in Portland that will hopefully spread their roots into the ground and grow tall just for you.   
 

Planting with Friends of Trees in Portland, OR on March 17. The sun even came out for you!

Last week it truly occurred to me that there are a lot of people in my life--both casual acquaintances and good friends--who see me, on the outside, and think I'm doing great.  The truth is that unless you've been down this shitty, terrible road personally, you can't understand the magnitude.  The reality is...I'm doing as great as I can be.  But I'm not OK.  I may smile and laugh and do my work and go out and have fun .  But I'm not who I used to be.  I wish I could be, but I can't be--Ever again.  You've changed me to the core.  I'm torn between the Old and the New Me.  In so many ways, I wish I was the Old Me, but that would mean that I never had you.

And so I'm taking the New Me and figuring out what that means.  I'm working on it, but these are some uncomfortable shoes to fill.   

On your 6 month birthday--without you

At 6 months, I think we've found a small sense of peace with everything that happened, Luke.

It still hurts that there really wasn't any legit medical reason we lost you. Part of that is easy to let go of, because it's so vague, but then part of it is incredibly hard to let go of because of the vagueness. It's a catch 22.

I've been told by many people that I'm doing really well, considering. I feel that I am too. It doesn't change the fact that I miss you like crazy and feel incredibly angry that I don't have a happy 6-month-old son to deal with. That I don't know what you would look like or be like at this age.

I wish you were here...

But I feel your presence more than you know. So much. There are tiny reminders here and there. And then there's the huge, bizarre coincidences when I feel like you're somehow still with us. Like what happened earlier this week. I picked up your big-doggie-sister, PJ from doggie daycamp at Petsmart. I got back her report card...and this is what it said.

PJ made a new doggie friend this week. His name was Luke Skywalker.

I didn't read that until we got back into the car, but it made me cry. Tears of joy and sadness at the same time. I don't know what I believe about the afterlife, and I don't pretend to have it all figured out, but there was a sense of your presence reading that note. There's been a few times these past 6 months where I truly feel that you're pulling strings from wherever you are and that gives me comfort.   

Today, Daddy ran in his first 5k ever.  He started running this year, and I'm so proud of him, because for the most part, he's doing this for you.

We're hanging in there, Luke.  It feels like these past 6 months have been a time warp that went both fast and slow at the same time.  But I feel like you've also made us be better versions of ourselves, too.  I wish it didn't take your absence to have done that...but if there's anything, there's that.

I wish you were here today, though. I really do.

It's hard to think that there will never be a day or a birthday that I don't wish that.  I hate that this is permanent.

I love you, sweet boy, till the end of time ♥♥♥    

5 Months

I ain't afraid of hurt
I've had so much it feels
just like normal to me now...

Normal. It's different now. It's been different for 5 months now.

I miss being pregnant with you, Luke. I've been feeling a lot of phantom kicks lately, and it's weird. I miss being happy and looking forward to all the changes that you would bring to our lives. I miss the naive optimism I had about how things would turn out for us. I miss being a normal person that looked at pregnancy as a happy, exciting, fun time. I miss those times when my biggest fear was having to take the 3-hour blood test for gestational diabetes.

I miss looking forward to your future. I miss being able to read back through my past journal entries without feeling like I'm missing something. It's like I spent the past year preparing for nothing. I know I was doing what any Mom does...but to have done all of that...for nothing? Hurts.

I miss my life before this neverending sense of underlying sadness and heartbreak crept in. It's forever.

I feel so jaded. We've experienced the worst thing a parent can experience. But we have so much more life to live.

I just want something to look forward to. To be excited about. I wish I could be excited about you turning 5 months old today, but I can't. Today I'm wistful. For the life that we should have had. On the outside, I feel mostly normal. But I'm different. You're missing.

5 months seems like so long...and yet completely not. Missing you today, my sweet boy.

Four Months

How has it already been four months since we lost you, Luke?

Sometimes I wonder how the 10th of each month will feel in a year. Or 10 years from now. I know the hole that you left will always be in my heart. But today, things feel easier. I don't know why. And I almost feel guilty that they feel that way.

Lately, I've felt a peace with you. I feel like you're embedded in everything I do, somehow. I think about you constantly, and it doesn't mean I miss you any less, or obsess about you, but there's just more peace now. I want to live life the way I'd want to for us. I will never be over you. You're engrained into my consciousness, and you'll be there forever.

My sweet boy--I wish this never had to happen to us--Being separated. But I can feel your spirit, and I know it's been carrying me and your Daddy every day since we lost you, and will for the rest of our lives.

For all the hours here that move too slow
There's all this letting go
that won't pass...

We'll always miss you, Luke.