six months.
Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day, but for loss moms and dads, its just another day.. because everyday it is very apparent, and we are very aware that our babies are no longer with us. Ironically today also mark 6 months since we spent our last day with Max. I write to Max often and its feels a little too personal for me to share that writing so far in this grief journey, but in honor of today and to hopefully let others loss parents feel that they aren’t so alone in this world I will share this one.
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Max,
6 months.. 6 months have come and gone since we’ve been with you. Sometime is feels like its been so much longer, sometimes it feels like it happened just yesterday. They say grief gets better with time, but so far in these past 6 months I am not sure that’s the truth. Sure, maybe the time has allowed me to learn how to deal with it.. how to prioritize time for it.. how to more easily talk about it. But what it has not made better is how much I still miss you. How much I long to just see you again, how much I feel like I am missing out .. and mostly, how much I wish I could go back.
I have spent the last 6 months reflecting on the 11 months we spent with you. In the beginning it was, what could I change. What in my power did I do that could have been different that would have brought you back. Heres the truth… I spent the first part of your loss convinced that there certainly was a mistake made. That we knew everything that was going on in your little body and that your PVS was under control, that there was no way anything else could happen. I knew everything about you, from the meaning of your diagnosis all the way down to why you might have retched after getting 2 certain meds together. I knew you’d get little red rings around your eyelids when your PVS started to come back, I knew your symptoms, that sudden increases in oxygen meant something more, that if something was wrong I would be there to make sure it got better. But when we lost you, I just didn’t know. I didn’t know that your lungs were so sick and I didn’t know that the phone call that morning would have been so devastating. So after you were gone, I did everything to make sure what I didn’t know was the only reason you were gone. So that I knew that I shouldn’t have done anything different and I now know that it wasn’t a mistake.
And since then.. I’ve spent these remaining months wishing it was just different. Wishing I could be with you back in Boston… wishing I would have held you longer.. wishing I would have taken more photos, more videos… wishing I would have brought your brothers to see you more… wishing we all just had more time. But I’ve also spent them creating a space… a difference in your honor. Finding a way to always remember the impact you have made on me and hopefully putting that impact on others. I’ve spent 6 months realizing what is truly important in this game of life, lettings the unimportant things go, and recognizing what things are going to be best for us and our family. And you and your impact are in every decision I make.
Sometimes these months feel harder than the first ones. I think because it’s now a realization that life keeps moving.. and that movement is always forward, even when you wish it was back. And no matter what your memory is what we have to hold onto. I wish I had new photos of you, photos celebrating your birthday, hearing your first word, watching you take your first steps. I wish I only had to miss you for a second, but instead I will miss you for a life time. So for the next 6 months and the 6 after that and after that. I’ll hold onto the photos and memories and videos we do have and I’ll make sure your memory is still just as alive as you were, no matter what adversity, sickness, or hardships present themselves. And until we see each other again sweet boy, I’ll just keep missing you.
