Hi my baby boy,

Hi my baby boy,

I wish there was a “how to” book on this. You know, like a “How to Work Through Losing a Child”. Obviously, nobody would ever read that book before they needed to. No need to educate yourself on something you don’t even want to think is possible. However, after you would realize you needed it you’d be in way too deep.

I don’t know when I came to terms with it in the hospital. Watching them give you CPR on the shore and have you not wake up? Maybe when we were sitting outside your room in the ER and there were like twenty different doctors and nurses around? Perhaps it was when we were being transferred to the PICU and the ambulance was just driving there slowly. We sat in traffic. No sirens on. Driving in silence because the ambulance driver didn’t say a word to me. He just sat there in silence. Once we got told that the MRI showed huge portions of your brain were down after that first night. I think I let it settle in.

I looked up information and resources while we were in the hospital. However, I don’t even know what the heck I was looking for. Where do you even start when you lose a child? I just wanted someone to give me the answers of what the heck came next. Your nurse, Kristin, gave me that comfort our second day at the hospital. After I had to ask the doctor “so I have to hope my son’s heart just stops beating, or I have to decide to pull the plug on him?” and he left, Kristin shared her story. This amazing nurse who we had only known for a few hours, who treated you like the sweet child that you were, connected with us on something horrible. When she told us their story, I was amazed. Here’s this amazing woman, this nurse, this mom taking care of kids in some of the worst positions, she’s lost a child and she’s still going. In my grief, I was just in awe of her. I’m sitting in the hospital, not understanding how my life isn’t over after all this, and this amazing example of a woman is standing in front of me and sharing her story.

There’s little things throughout our time that could have made the worst situation in the world even harder, but there were some good things. We had the help on the beach right away, the ambulance driver in the first ambulance cried with me and held my hand while we drove to the first hospital, and your nurses were these amazing humans who I swear loved you without ever talking to you. Those were the “bright spots” in the first of the darkest days.

I got completely off track here. I swear, I just start talking to you thinking I want to tell you about this one thing, then I go off on a tangent about something else. I know that some of these letters repeat things sometimes. I also know that some of them probably don’t completely make sense. I’m sorry. I just type all this out and go wherever my brain goes. I don’t read them back at all before I send them out into the universe for you. I just let them be.

What I wanted to tell you about is how I feel like I’m doing everything right, but wrong at the same time. Today in therapy, Ellie told her therapist she didn’t think she could talk to me about you. She said she worried it would upset me and then I’d be mad at her. I cry every single day. Sometimes it’s complete sobbing and sometimes it’s just quiet tears running down my face. I thought being open with my emotions would allow your siblings to be open with their emotions. It actually backfired. Seeing me constantly crying and upset over you has your siblings treading lightly around me. They don’t want to say anything about you, remember a memory, or talk about what was because I get upset. I’ve told them multiple times that I want to talk about you and if I cry when they say something, I’m not upset. They aren’t making me upset. I just love you so much and you’re gone so that’s what happens. I stand by letting them see me cry all the time. I stand by my choice to talk about you and remember you all the time. Hopefully at some point my approach will be helpful. Right now I just worry it’s hurting them even more.

Elijah was hugging your urn today. He said he just “missed you”. How is a mom supposed to help three different kids through something she can’t even comprehend herself? I need your wisdom. I need your hugs. I need that sweetness that scotch taped my hickory dickory dock bowl from childhood back together, the kindness that duct taped the “plant president’s” pot back together, and your caring heart that drew Uncle Jim’s broken stained glass butterfly for me. I need you to tell me what to do.

I feel like I’m just rambling and crying, so I am going to let you go. Remember that dream where you held my face, looked in my eyes, and told me that you loved me? I could really use something like that again. I love you more than anything, my baby. Goodnight and sweet dreams.