Angel Mail # 2

Dearest Jeremy,

I couldn't believe how much better I felt after I wrote to you the last time. I think I'll give it another try.

It's been getting harder living on this earth without you my sweet baby. I can't seem to remember or think about the sweetness of you in my life. The images of your sickness and hospitalization are so vivid, dominant, and raw in my soul. It is haunting. I think I'm experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms. When everything was happening, we had no choice but to go through it, doing all we could to save your life. I know you tried your best sweet one, you did all you could. It was just your time. . . I guess all the while I knew that your death was a possibility but I just couldn't accept that reality. Really what parent does? We all hope until there is none. . . I guess I was just so caught up in the miracle that I wanted for you that I couldn't see or understand that God would have a different one in mind for you.

What is heaven like baby? I wish I had a window to see you. On my really hard days, I try to imagine you in the arms of Jesus and angels. I imagine you facing outward, the way that you liked to be held. I imagine your smiling face and it really does calm me. Can you see me? Can you see us crying in sheer despair over your death and absence from our family? What can you share with me about your life with Jesus? ALL OF THE UNKNOWN IS JUST SO MUCH . I'm really not that good at this part. I'm the mother yet I feel that it is you that has so much to teach me. . . Most days my head and my heart dance apart. I pray everyday that I can come to acceptance.

I am just about finished working on a scrapbook that tells the story of your life here on earth. I know your life here on earth is just a blip of time where you are, but it is important to me and to your family. It has been both therapeutic and heart wrenching at the same time working on it. I foolishly keep thinking that if I just wait a little longer to finish it, then it didn't really didn't happen. You really didn't die. It still seems so impossible that this happens, yet it does.

Your Daddy and I are really struggling with the upcoming holidays. We feel like we are chained to train tracks and the train is coming. We know we will somehow get through each one but how??? Our life seems like a puzzle with missing pieces. Trying to do the same traditions and carry on without you feels like trying to put a misplaced puzzle piece in the wrong place. It just doesn't fit. Your Daddy says that it is easier knowing what we don't want, but we can't seem to find the answer to what we do want. This time last year, I was on bed rest, waiting for you to make your grand appearance into this world. You must know by now that I did all I could to ensure that you would be as healthy as possible. To be honest, I am angry that we wanted you so badly, we worked so hard, I threw up for so many months, I was on bedrest, etc. . . and I still don't have you in my arms to hold. It is truly the oddest feeling to remember such joy and anticipation one year ago and then to see our life now today, without you sweet baby. I just can't believe that this has happened. . . I went to someone's house this week and saw a nursery in the works for another sweet soul. It was a window to my old life. That was me one year ago. I couln't breathe when the closet door was opened. Of course I feel joy for my friend, but it is only natural to wonder why this has happened to you and to our family. I prayed to my myself silently " Help me Lord, because I don't understand your ways." I have all the same stuff, but no baby... My heart aches so very deeply.

You would have been celebrating your first birthday in a few weeks. We are busy planning a Blood Drive in your memory. We have no ability to change what happened to you. We can have some power over making a difference in someone else's life. We decided that giving life to someone else would be the best way to honor your life and the legacy that you have left behind. It hurts. I know that in my soul, I would have still have planned something like this AND had a party for you.

It amazes me just how many tears one human mom can shed. I know God counts each and every one. Is there really such a number???

I'm sorry that I don't have much joy to share with you tonight. You get the real me. . . not the face that I work so hard at showing everyone else.

Love,
Mommy