One year ago today, we discovered that you were gone. I can still remember the ultrasound technician trying to find you. You were supposed to be 14 weeks gestation that day…but you’d stopped growing at 11 weeks and 5 days gestation. And your heart had stopped beating.
I don’t know how to reconcile all of these new anniversaries and birthdays — days that were supposed to bring us so much joy, but instead make the grief feel unbearably heavy. Today’s anniversary, and your birthday, make three dates that I absolutely dread and cherish all at the same time. I cherish them because they are moments that remind me you were here. You are real, and I will always be your proud mama! I dread them because you could not stay, and the shadows of what should have been bring me to my knees.
The other day, your gramma told me about your sister playing with a little boy at the park. He is two-and-a-half years old, and your big sister played with him the way she would’ve played with Ezra. That thought made me want to cry, and it’s the reason I avoid parks as much as possible. They are filled with physical representations of the things I can never have. Right now, I have a five-year-old, a two-and-a-half-year-old, and a seven-month-old, but only one of you is visible to the other people of this world.
I wish there were more I could say to you…other than, “I miss you.” The truth, though, is that I struggle to shake off the constant melancholy. And, until the day I draw my last breath, I will miss you, Fletcher, and your sweet big brother, with every piece of my broken heart.
Sweet Insanity 