Instead

Every time I look outside I want to cry. Winter, the snow, the holidays...All any of it represents to me is that the anniversary's of your life and death are coming. When I first lost you I thought about them often and how I couldn't imagine really making it to the day that should be your wonderful first birthday party with presents and cake and what I imagine would be a very chubby, smiling you. Instead I will probably lay in bed with your urn and beg you for a sign you're out there so I can blow you a kiss and have faith you get to catch it. 

I've realized I grew up with this image in my head that things would someday just work out. Like all of the sudden I would wake up in a happy home with the person I love and my children and things would be how they're suppose to be, just like that.

That's really a terrible way to think because life has definitely proven me wrong in the most awful of ways, but my mind still always ends on the thought that there has to be a rewind button. Somewhere, somehow, there just has to be, because every single part of me aches to go back to that day. To wake up and feed my little fatboy, but go back to bed afterwards instead. Instead of getting ready for work. Instead of changing their clothes. Instead of putting Bosty in his car seat. Instead of unknowingly driving my son to his death. I would truly give literally anything to go back to that moment squished in between the two halves that made me whole, close my eyes and go back to sleep. 

I miss you so much, Boston. It is excruciating. I spent a lot of time trying to tell myself that one of these days I will wake up to something besides feeling my heartbreak. Thinking somehow, maybe, I could convince myself it's not really this bad, but it is. I think I am learning though. Learning that my "it will just go away" life style isn't a life style and doesn't exist. It's absolutely something I would give anything not to know about, but that's the thing...I do. Trying to ignore that is more torture to my already ripped apart soul. I have to miss you. I have to wonder. I have to cry. I have to let myself be completely horribly broken, because you can't fix anything that you won't acknowledge is broken in the first place. Not to mention you were perfect, and when you fall in love with perfect, anything less is so terribly tragic to have to live with. 

I love you, I love you, I love you, 

and someday I won't have to miss you. That is what I hold onto...

A letter to my mother

Mom,

Thank you. For a million reasons really, but here are a few. Thank you for all the love you give my children. For all the times you'd sit next to me with your hand on my belly waiting to feel them kick. For all the times you'd say "Okay, I'm ready for that baby to come!" For all the times I'd walk through your door and you'd say "Well, I did get this for the baby..." and then come out of your room with something truly adorable for one of them. For all the times you helped me with Q when I was sick while pregnant with Bosty. Thank you for watching survivor with me and the bachelor, I looked forward to those nights and skinny pop popcorn. Thank you for being genuinely delighted when my water broke and bringing me to the hospital. Thank you for staring for hours at Boston with me. For the mornings you would come grab him out of my room so I could sleep a little bit longer. For rocking him while I got us all ready for bed. For the last Saturday he was with us and we had to go get Stacy and you made him smile from ear to ear after I put him in his car seat. I will remember it forever. Thank you for being the one to pick him up that day. I'm so sorry you hold that nightmare with you, but I don't think I could have taken that pain. Thank you for making all the phone calls I couldn't have made myself. For greeting everyone at his visitation because all I could do is stand by his casket and sing to him. For being the one to play with Q because I didn't have it in me to get out of bed for months after Bosty left, even though I know you didn't want to either. Thank you for knowing how much I miss my baby. For knowing how wonderful he was. For loving us, and I hope you know how much we love you too.

My babies are so truly lucky to have you as their grandma.

The truth hurts

I cringe every time I look at a photo of myself. Whoever said that when you lose a child there's only one way you categorize things from that point on: before the death and after, was absolutely correct. I despise that difference. By no means was everything perfect in my life before Boston passed, but it didn't matter because I had him and Quinton. For once in my life I was content. I look at the few pictures I've been in since his death and it's like there is nothing behind my eyes. Eyes tell stories, but mine are empty. I can't help but wonder if the glint in them will ever return, but I don't really think it will. 

Losing a child robs you of a million moments, a million memories, a million feelings. It leaves you terrified, heartbroken, and the light I use to have in me is no longer there. It's off searching through the darkness trying to find my baby... I really just want my son. 

Life and people have been terribly hard to deal with lately because losing a child also results in being labeled as the person who must just be crazy because they lost a child... And so many people "can't imagine" what we're going through. I honestly think what I've been through (in some ways) makes me more sane than most, and before you think "Okay, she's really lost it" please hear me out. I don't live in ignorance. There is a black hole of truth you get thrown into when you experience such a traumatic loss. 

You don't get to go home and pretend that everything's okay and I've learned that people really don't like it when you're real. It makes them uncomfortable. 

They'd rather go home and pretend that pain like this doesn't exist because they don't have to deal with it. I don't get to do that. There's truly no pretending here. The face I literally ache to see each day is only in pictures on my wall. The sleeper I woke up and put on my unbelievably adorable son on his last day lays on my pillow along with the blanket he had with him. There is little bits of the clay that they used to make the mold of his hand stuck to it's sleeves. In my closet there is a huge chest where I keep things of his that I will cherish forever. His car seat is sitting by the door of my bed. I don't get to pretend because no matter where I am or where I go, my baby boy isn't there. 

Just try to imagine that... but you can't right? Well, I don't have to imagine. This is my life. My baby. My broken heart. My broken family.

I will spend the rest of my life trying to find ways to make Boston's name live on in a positive light, but I will never speak anything less than the reality of how truly awful losing him has been. 

To the sweetest boy I've ever known...I miss you with every breath that I take.