4 Years

I can't think. I can't breathe. I can't do anything.

How has four years passed? I look into his enormous, blue eyes in my favorite photo and wonder if he was ever really here. It all seems like a dream. For 90 days I had it all. Forget the NICU, the feeding tubes, the oxygen, and monitors. He was here and he was perfect. If you had asked me then, I would have said that was the happiest I had ever been in my entire life. I had two beautiful boys and regardless of what problems lay ahead, I loved them with all my heart.

How do you mark the worst day of your life? I took the day off work and had planned on getting a massage, but my regular girl is gone until the new year. Maybe I will schedule with someone else, but I can't explain it to a stranger. I will cry and it won't be pretty. I think I will spend the day with Monkey. Maybe make Christmas cookies and cuddle on the couch in our PJ's. I know I will visit Noah, but it is so empty when I go. It is just a hunk of granite and I don't really feel him there. I feel like I should take flowers and sit at his grave, but it is all so forced and doesn't help. What I want is him.

Noah sent me a present though. When he was in the hospital, I came across the band, Mercy Me. The words would literally drop me to my knees. The music was soothing and hopeful. It made me believe that I would be with him again after he died. It just happens that they are performing nearby. I don't think it is coincidence that it just happens to be on Noah's day. I am going with my two best friends. Maybe Noah knew I needed a way to feel him and they knew I needed someone to hold me up. Just maybe this is it. I am looking forward to going, but I am not sure how I will react hearing those songs again.

I have been thinking about how things have changed since he passed. He has changed every ounce of my being. I don't even know who I was before him. I have healed in many ways, but in others I am just as stuck as I was then. I wish I knew how to lift the weight of my guilt and grief. I wish I could forgive myself and see past my failures. My only job was to protect him and I couldn't. I know there was nothing more for me to do, but my body broke him and it was me who got him sick. Tomorrow would have been his surgery if we had gone through with it. I know now that had we done it, tomorrow would have been his last day and I wouldn't have been able to hold and love him while he passed. I believe God had his hand in that decision.

I look back and am so grateful for those blessed 90 days. For 90 days, I was the luckiest girl in the world. I was happy and whole. I ache for him now. I want to remember how the weight of his tiny body felt, how his hair smelled, and hear his tiny sighs. I pray that he is whole and free in heaven. As Monkey often tells me, we carry him in our hearts.

I love you Noah.