I keep hearing myself say over and over again, "Some days are just going to be tougher than others."
Understatement of the year.
I have started and erased the beginning of this blog about four times now. I have a direction I want to go with it, but our life doesn't seem to be getting any easier to write about. I want to share our story, from my perspective at least, so that John isn't just a name on a stone, but a person. A baby we want to share with the world, even if the world has a hard time talking about him.
I don't understand why talking about John makes people so uncomfortable. Okay...maybe it is the blubbering and tears that make people uncomfortable, but we WANT to talk about our baby.
Talking about him keeps his smile alive in our memories, when the bad ones start to seep in. Talking about him helps put another little piece of tape on our shattered hearts. Talking about him lets the world know how incredible our little man was when all people want to focus on is what happened. Talking about him is just good.
I find myself struggling to remember what he smelled like. What his plump little hands felt like inside mine, how they felt against my lips. It's only been a month since I got to steal my last kiss and my very last cuddle. Every time I think about those precious final moments, a empty hole opens in my chest and I fight tears. To just have been able to press rewind... I loved squeezing his chunky self. Snatching him up and pressing every chubby inch against my chest. I'm starting to forget what he felt like. The little giggle that would escape his lips when I would blow raspberries under his chin. Do you know how much that haunts me? I don't want to forget. I'm so scared I will forget.
We can't get that back, but we are desperately clinging to those memories. That's all we have left. We have been prematurely robbed of the rest because someone was careless in caring for John.
That is what is so amazingly beautiful about our loss too. We don't get to make any more of those memories. We don't get any more kisses and snuggles. But what we do have are some of the most perfect moments in our lives. We have all of these beautiful intimate moments with the most precious gift you can receive. We were so blessed and graced to have John in our lives, even if only for a little while. But the endless amount of love, happiness, and sadness he brought our family is a rare and costly gem to behold in this evil world.
He was pure. Innocent. And all his love was too.
To know the innocent love of a child, and only their innocent love...to know they only knew pure unadulterated love makes my heart happy and broken all over again every day. John never knew, and will never know that this is a dark scary place. He only knew all good things. He knew he had the best Mommy that loved him every second of every day. He knew he had a warm bed and clean snug jammies. He knew he had good food and always had good company. He knew that he was loved unconditionally, and that is all a child his age should know.
I miss John. Today is one of those tougher days. One of those days where getting out of bed was harder than anything I have done all year. One of those days where I cried the whole way to work because why our baby? One of those days where I would give anything for one more kiss. One of those days where I feel bitter and cold towards the world.
The kisses we got, we get to keep forever, but in our beautiful brokenness I also find myself being selfish. I want more kisses. I want more snuggles. More than that I want our chunk back. And I find the thought, why our baby, running through my head once again.
Losing John is like being a deep dark well, with this unbelievably bright light shining straight through the top right on your fragile water soaked skin. It feels so lonely, isolated and like you will never get out, and then there it is again...that light. It reminds you how amazing it is, how great it feels against your skin, and then its gone again. And you are damp and alone in the dark.
I cling to the light. As crazy as it sounds, I feel John in the sunshine. His radiant smile. The sun is so painfully present in our lives since his passing, so much so that I know it is him. On the day we buried our fat man, is was raining. Cloudy, yucky rain. I knew he was there with us, just as heartbroken to be leaving us. His tears truly falling down on us. But on his first birthday party, a day of immense joy and pain, the sun shone just as bright as could be...his grace embracing us. I take solace in the sun light.
I will go stretches where he isn't on my mind. A couple of hours where I am busy and John slips away. As soon as I think of him, its like reliving his loss all over again. We are constantly told that time will ease our pain, but I honestly don't think it will ease. Not because I don't want it to, but because you can never fix this kind of broken. You just learn to live with it but it does not go away. I would be scared if it went away.
I also won't stop talking about John for as long as I live. I have my own children, and they are every bit my world, but so was he. My goal is to show the world that talking about infant loss isn't bad, it's not traumatic to the families but instead what most of us want. We want to share our baby. We want you to know what happened to him.
More than anything we want you to know John.
Understatement of the year.
I have started and erased the beginning of this blog about four times now. I have a direction I want to go with it, but our life doesn't seem to be getting any easier to write about. I want to share our story, from my perspective at least, so that John isn't just a name on a stone, but a person. A baby we want to share with the world, even if the world has a hard time talking about him.
I don't understand why talking about John makes people so uncomfortable. Okay...maybe it is the blubbering and tears that make people uncomfortable, but we WANT to talk about our baby.
Talking about him keeps his smile alive in our memories, when the bad ones start to seep in. Talking about him helps put another little piece of tape on our shattered hearts. Talking about him lets the world know how incredible our little man was when all people want to focus on is what happened. Talking about him is just good.
I find myself struggling to remember what he smelled like. What his plump little hands felt like inside mine, how they felt against my lips. It's only been a month since I got to steal my last kiss and my very last cuddle. Every time I think about those precious final moments, a empty hole opens in my chest and I fight tears. To just have been able to press rewind... I loved squeezing his chunky self. Snatching him up and pressing every chubby inch against my chest. I'm starting to forget what he felt like. The little giggle that would escape his lips when I would blow raspberries under his chin. Do you know how much that haunts me? I don't want to forget. I'm so scared I will forget.
We can't get that back, but we are desperately clinging to those memories. That's all we have left. We have been prematurely robbed of the rest because someone was careless in caring for John.
That is what is so amazingly beautiful about our loss too. We don't get to make any more of those memories. We don't get any more kisses and snuggles. But what we do have are some of the most perfect moments in our lives. We have all of these beautiful intimate moments with the most precious gift you can receive. We were so blessed and graced to have John in our lives, even if only for a little while. But the endless amount of love, happiness, and sadness he brought our family is a rare and costly gem to behold in this evil world.
He was pure. Innocent. And all his love was too.
To know the innocent love of a child, and only their innocent love...to know they only knew pure unadulterated love makes my heart happy and broken all over again every day. John never knew, and will never know that this is a dark scary place. He only knew all good things. He knew he had the best Mommy that loved him every second of every day. He knew he had a warm bed and clean snug jammies. He knew he had good food and always had good company. He knew that he was loved unconditionally, and that is all a child his age should know.
I miss John. Today is one of those tougher days. One of those days where getting out of bed was harder than anything I have done all year. One of those days where I cried the whole way to work because why our baby? One of those days where I would give anything for one more kiss. One of those days where I feel bitter and cold towards the world.
The kisses we got, we get to keep forever, but in our beautiful brokenness I also find myself being selfish. I want more kisses. I want more snuggles. More than that I want our chunk back. And I find the thought, why our baby, running through my head once again.
Losing John is like being a deep dark well, with this unbelievably bright light shining straight through the top right on your fragile water soaked skin. It feels so lonely, isolated and like you will never get out, and then there it is again...that light. It reminds you how amazing it is, how great it feels against your skin, and then its gone again. And you are damp and alone in the dark.
I cling to the light. As crazy as it sounds, I feel John in the sunshine. His radiant smile. The sun is so painfully present in our lives since his passing, so much so that I know it is him. On the day we buried our fat man, is was raining. Cloudy, yucky rain. I knew he was there with us, just as heartbroken to be leaving us. His tears truly falling down on us. But on his first birthday party, a day of immense joy and pain, the sun shone just as bright as could be...his grace embracing us. I take solace in the sun light.
I will go stretches where he isn't on my mind. A couple of hours where I am busy and John slips away. As soon as I think of him, its like reliving his loss all over again. We are constantly told that time will ease our pain, but I honestly don't think it will ease. Not because I don't want it to, but because you can never fix this kind of broken. You just learn to live with it but it does not go away. I would be scared if it went away.
I also won't stop talking about John for as long as I live. I have my own children, and they are every bit my world, but so was he. My goal is to show the world that talking about infant loss isn't bad, it's not traumatic to the families but instead what most of us want. We want to share our baby. We want you to know what happened to him.
More than anything we want you to know John.
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