Today would have been my brother’s 31st birthday. I’m definitely feeling “it” this year, more than I ever have. Having children of my own, and recently have a miscarriage has magnified the depth of what my parents experienced in losing their son, my brother.
I have a 3 (soon to be 4) and 2-year-old. I think often about what life would be like if I lost one of them. How I would carry on every time I saw a tv remote or umbrella and remembered how my son said both as if they began with K’s (kamote and kbrella). Or in the morning, when I was putting on a pair of socks and remembered how much he HATED bumps in his socks and pulled them up as far as possible to avoid them. How would my heart be held together without hearing my son call my name, just to tell me loves me. This winter, how would I survive Frozen 2’s debut when Ana, Elsa, and “Let it Go” were my daughter’s favorites. How would I exist in a world where there was stillness after 7:30pm instead of going to help my unbelievably strong-willed daughter who is screaming “want more snuggles” and insists on getting a band-aid for her invisible foot wound every single night? She gives the sweetest eskimo kisses, what if I never felt her cold nose against mine again? I have almost 4 years of memories and when I think of losing one of my children, I think about how the world would unknowingly, yet constantly be screaming my child’s memory, with almost every ear deaf to the sound except mine. My parents had 13 years and I have so many questions. How do you watch a U of M football game again? Set the table for 4 instead of 5? Answer the question, “How many kids do you have?”? How do you get out of bed on Christmas morning knowing your son would have been up all night watching the Christmas Story with excitement like no one I’ve ever met (besides my sister now, who got it from her brother) for Christmas morning? How do you hear how Great Thou Art and function the rest of the service? What do you do with all of his physical belongings? The hospital bag? The pictures? The new bike he got for his last birthday? How about never seeing his gaping smile or hearing his loud laugh? Never looking into his big brown eyes or running your fingers through his spiked hair? What would you do with all the unfilled dreams for the future? Would he be married? Have a family? How do you exist on a day where you son should have been 31 and you have to go the cemetery to celebrate him? How do you breathe one more breath in a world where your child, your own heartbeat, no longer lives. I honestly don’t know. If it physically hurts me to think about all these questions I can’t imagine it being my life. But my parents stinking did it and are still doing it. So when people talk to me about my strength, know it’s from my parents. For making it through days no parent should have to endure a single second of. For being patient and perseverant in the face of unimaginable grief. For fighting for their marriage and beating statistics. For packing up their son’s room when it was time to move yet holding the boxes in their basement until the day they die. For giving the literal gift of life to others and choosing organ donation. For loving hard, extending our family beyond blood and welcoming a new family into ours. Again for loving hard, their grandkids and watching U of M football with them and holding them at the cemetery as they ask hard questions about death and grief. For forgiving, and clinging. Happy 31st Birthday Nick. We miss you, so much.
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Hi! I'm Haley. Archives
May 2019
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