Knowing that Solly doesn't have much of a sense of the calendar, I mentioned that it was your birthday soon. "Oh," he said, "he will be 12!"
I love that he thinks of you in the present tense.
I love that he didn't even have to think about how old you would be. (As a mom of four, I have to think of how old *I* am so this is doubly impressive to me.)
"And we'll have donuts for breakfast!" he said.
And we did.
Donuts this morning. A dozen, in fact.
Instead of a birthday candle, we lit a memorial candle.
Instead of balloons, we felt deflated. The mouthfuls of donut felt ashen and sad, hard and tasteless.
There's an ache today, a missing piece -- you're always on my mind. But today...even more.
Solly went on, by the way. "So next year will be Sam's Bar Mitzvah," he announced.
And I didn't have a good answer. Because he's right. It would have been one year til your Bar Mitzvah, one year from now. This year should have been filled with joy, a year of preparation and learning, a year of growing and thinking and working and loving.
Sometimes the weight of this hits me so hard. I have complicated feelings about the idea of the afterlife. Will we meet you again? Will we come together? Will our souls unite, our spirits join? Will we really see you again? I have no answers to these questions. I have no way of knowing if this message will reach you, because I really don't know if there is still a you...out there.
But we are here. And I want, so badly, to imagine that you're somehow with us.
But you're not. And this number is one more that you're not here. One more number past the 8 that you got. One more year without you. One more day in the 1,425 days that we've spent without you so far....and all the days that stretch before me.
Oh, Sammy. I wish that this letter was different. I wish I that I was writing a joyful piece in anticipation of your Bar Mitzvah year. I wish I had forgotten to write a blog post about 1500 days post-transplant (today would be 1534) and I was so happy that I had missed the milestone because, for a brief moment, things were so "normal" that I didn't even count the days. (As if I wouldn't count...have you met me?)
Today, you are 12. And forever 8. It will never be right.
I love you and miss you every day.
Love,
Mommy
 |
| 2nd birthday (That's a Blues Clues cupcake.) |
2nd birthday: Best Shot Monday
3rd birthday: Birthday marathon
4th birthday: This is your birthday song
5th birthday: Five is a big number
6th birthday: Six is Awesome
7th birthday: Lucky Number Seven and Birthday Boy
8th birthday: Little Things
9th birthday: Birthdate
10th birthday: Just Not Okay