A letter for my baby boy

2.22.16

“I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.” Gen 4:1

My Dearest Sweet Baby Michael,

I never thought I’d love a red-headed boy, but you changed me forever in more than one way.

It took over a year to conceive you.  I was just ready to give up. I’m 41, the chances of you coming along were getting slimmer every missed month.  But there you were on Father’s Day- “the best Father’s Day gift ever”- the promise of a child.  I wanted you to be a boy- I wanted to make a man.  I had dreams for you before you ever were.

I wanted you to be tall and smart and handsome like your daddy, and talented like your namesake uncle, and loving and sensitive like your big sisters.  I wanted you to have dark hair and blue eyes like me- because I’ve always wanted a dark haired baby. I wanted to see you with grey hair holding my hand at the end of our days together.

You won’t become all the things I wanted- and that is true for every parent- but you will always be my perfect baby I held in my womb for nine months and in my arms for only a few hours. 

You didn’t open your eyes, but you opened my heart.  You will always be in my heart, but also inexplicably-  you will always be my missing piece.

I made a feather for you. It didn’t really mean anything at the time, just a trinket- a little thing to match the tiny hat.  Now that little trinket- that feather is an anchor.  Just a little feather that I worry though my fingers to remind me that you were real- you were mine- you are mine- you will always be mine. Although you won’t be in my arms again on this earth, I know you are in the arms of the angels until I see you again.

I want to stop crying for you.  I want to smile when I think of you- I realize I’m not crying for you- I’m crying for me.  I see a red headed boy and I cry and I think ‘would he have stayed strawberry blond?  Would he be blonde like his sisters?  Would he have been auburn or turned dark?  Would he be fair?’  I thought you looked very much like your sister Lailah.  Lailah is beautiful, I imagine you two would have been very much alike.

I believe I will always see you- in your sisters and in a thousand little boys. 

On Monday February 22, 2016 we planned to celebrate your birthday; instead you will return to dust, from which we all come. 

It has been my great joy to have brought forth a man.  It has been my great sorrow to lose a son.

I will celebrate your life.  I will cry (a lot) and I hope one day I will smile for you, my love.

I wish I could write something more beautifully phrased.  Even these few lines took such effort.  I would say I am broken, but that’s not true.  I’m not broken- but I am bent to the ground and Satan is biting at my heel. My comfort is knowing he is crushed beneath our feet and you are safe forever.

I love you forever and always, more than I can say, more than I can show-

Mama