Due Date

Dear Noah,

Today was supposed to be your birthday. While I am sure you would not have actually been born right on schedule, it doesn’t erase the significance this date has on my heart. It’s been almost 4 months since you left this earth, and not a moment goes by that I am not swallowed in grief. 

It amazes me how life goes on without you. You brought so much love and joy with you, that it seems in your absence the sky should turn black and the depths of the earth should moan at her loss. It seems impossible that the sun could keep shining, birds could keep chirping, children keep playing… When I step out I want to scream of your existence, and how much you were loved. Your tiny presence in this world seems to me to be something everybody should know about. You came and you were important. You weren’t a clump of cells, or fetal tissue. You were ten fingers and ten toes. A beating heart. A baby boy. You cried when you were born into a world that meant nothing more to you than needles,wires and tubes. You were so strong up until the moment you took your last breath.

What was going to be one of the happiest days in my life seemed almost coincidentally to fall the day before Thanksgiving.  I looked forward to giving thanks for the newest addition to my family. That happy day has now been replaced with somber, reflective, heart wrenching misery. In this reflection however, I have realized through all this pain, you have given me so much to be thankful for. You allowed me to love you and become a mom again to a little boy who I will only know in heaven. You made me look my biggest fear in the eyes and overcome, scarred but stronger. You have helped me to become a better mom to your brother. You strengthened my faith in our heavenly father and changed how I look at this whole world. Your passing pushed me into decisions I would not have otherwise made which invariably changes the path of my entire life.  You were only here for 2 hours and yet my life will never be the same.

This Thanksgiving I still am thankful for you. You opened up a door in my heart I did not know existed and while you may not be in my arms this year, you will be in my heart and held tight in your Father’s arms.

 I still, and will always, see you as one of God’s greatest blessings to me.

Love,

Mommy