three years ago

I woke up early this morning and found that I couldn't go back to sleep. So I came downstairs and decided that I needed to write to William. The words were hard to come at first, but they did come. Then the tears followed, and along with them more words. After I felt done writing I went upstairs to the room that will become the nursery. In the closet is a box filled with most of the mementos of William. I took my time and allowed myself to cry as I lifted out each item, looked at the pictures, and read the notes and messages. I even read through the journal entries that I wrote shortly after we returned from the hospital.

Today won't include a trip to the cemetery or a cake or released balloons, but I am remembering my beautiful baby boy and am feeling the presence of his spirit.

William,
Today is the third anniversary of your birth and death. I still miss you and I still think of you every day. Some days you are on my mind a lot, as memories come back to me when I see or hear things that trigger them. Other days it is how it has been for quite some time now--less of a specific memory or even a thought and more just the feeling of you and how much I love you. You have left an impression on me that will forever be felt. Your life has changed my life and it will never go back to how it once was. I used to curse the fact that you died because my life changed so significantly that day. I used to think that my life was better before and that if only you had lived that everything would be good and happy and right. Sometimes I still wonder how things would be different now if you hadn’t died, but I do not long for a now that doesn’t exist. You lived and you died, and as a result we will never be the same. That is a fact. But despite the pain that we went through and the loss that we still feel, and will always feel, I have come to accept that you are gone. Our lives are beautiful. And not because your death was “meant to be” and your reason for being here with us for such a short time was part of some big plan to teach us a big lesson. I believe that all of life’s experiences are opportunities to learn lessons—not just the big events that shake us to our very foundations. I believe that each day we are faced with lessons and it is up to us to see them or not, to learn from them or not, and even whether we experience them through joy or pain or not. So yes, your life and your death have been lessons that I continue to learn from. I choose, each day (though some days I am more successful than others) to embrace the life that is—rather than looking back at what once was or looking into a distorted pool of imagining what could have been, might have been, or—most dangerous and distorted—a notion of what should have been. This does not mean that my love for you is lessened, or that the impact of your spirit is dimmed in any way…those things are just not possible. In a way it seems, though I think I would have thought this impossible for quite some time, that accepting the fact that you died has opened up an even bigger space inside of me to feel the intensity of your love. For a long time I think I needed to hold onto my painful feelings because a part of me felt that if I let go of them that it somehow meant letting go of you. It seems now that it is only in the letting go of the pain that I can really “hold” you. Oh William, this makes so much sense to me now. You were never anything of pain, you were and are only love and joy…my beautiful baby.