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.
