Logan,
I am missing you so much. I miss you so badly right now.
Sometimes I don't know that I can take another step forward, take another breath without you here. Barely a string of moments have gone by that I haven't thought of you, haven't looked up into the sky and wondered about you. Wondered if Pappaw is holding you, if Jesus is holding you, if anyone is holding you. Always sad that it is not your mommy holding you.
I'm trying to make sure your headstone is put up soon. Something I want to do for you but something I shouldn't have to do at all. It's not right, it's not fair, to any of us. None of it. That you're there and I'm here. And the whole world keeps going on and sometimes I just want to scream for them all to remember that you died. I don't know why. I just want your life to mean something. Because you did live and you do mean something. You mean EVERYTHING. To me you are the world. You and Ella. I love you both more than I could ever explain, more than I even know what love means. More than what a few letters strung together could ever convey.
You and Ella are the reasons for my life and I never knew it. And it was too late for you by the time I knew it. Oh I knew I loved you, I just didn't know what that meant until you were gone and Ella was here without you. Now you are both still my reasons, in so very many ways. You are the reason I am not afraid to die because that day I will kiss your face and hold you in my arms and my heart will be full. And Ella is the reason I live here and now, the reason I am able to smile in this world without you.
She is so wonderful, Logan. She is doing so well. She is beautiful and smart and she dances and she laughs, and I wish you were here with her. That's what I wish most of all. I wish you were doing all those things with her. I wish the two of you could play and babble and take things away from each other and take baths together and just be brother and sister. That's what I wanted for both of you. For you both to just be the little people you were going to be...together.
How many times can I say it? I love you, I miss you. Forever and always. Eternity. Infinity. I love you my sweet sweet boy.
10 months
I can't believe it has been 10 months. It doesn't seem 'real' that it's almost been an entire year. I hate it. I hate everything about it. Not only am I moving too quickly away from Logan, but Ella is growing up entirely too fast. She's changing before my mind even has time to adjust. I have always heard "they grow up too fast" but never believed it. Now I want to know how this happens and demand a do-over.
What I wouldn't give for a do-over in so many areas. A do-over of the 10 days before October 6th, to see if I lied perfectly still and didnt' move an inch, if Logan would have made it. Well, nevermind that. If it was a do-over where I 'knew' it was a do-over, I would simply have a c-section early, at 34 weeks. Yes, it's early. But Ella was perfectly fine at 35 weeks, and if Logan had just been born, just gotten OUT of me sometime in the 10 days prior, he would be alive. Alive and here. Alive and sleeping in the crib with Ella right now. Here. He would be here. I imagine it all the time, what it would be like. I can't look at Ella and not wonder what Logan would be doing next to her. What they would be doing together. She is so robbed by this. That is what is most unfair. That she doesn't get to grow up with her brother, her twin. That she didn't get to continue sharing this world with him, the same way she shared their world in the womb. I hate this for her. I know the option exists to not ever even tell her about him. But that's impossible. It's an option that DOESN'T exist in my mind. To not tell her is to take away from HIM, and I won't do that. He deserves to have her love and she deserves to know about him, to know what happened.
I don't know. It's getting harder and harder in some ways. the more she grows, the more I share with her, the more laughter and smiles she brings into my life, the more aware I am of how it would be to have them both. The more aware I am of what I am missing, what we are missing, but most of all, what SHE is missing-her brother.
October 6, 2009 is just around the corner. I know I will fight with all of my mental power to make time slow, to fight to keep it from coming. But I know I will lose and it will come, no matter how much I wish it wouldn't.
Before then, we've got Ellas surgery this coming week, that hurdle to jump. Then there is Logans headstone to be put up in the following weeks.
And then a birthday to...to what? to plan? I don't know that I can have a big party. I haven't reconciled how to feel that day. I know when it comes down to it, I won't have much control over however I end up feeling. I had decided right after losing Logan/having Ella that I would use October 5th as the date of the 'anniversary of Logans death", since that is technically the "date" we found out (late evening), and leave October 6th for Ellas birthday, a celebration of Ellas life. But no matter how specifically I separate them, they are the same in my mind. I know they both came into this world at the same time-October 6th-one alive and healthy and one already gone, too late to save.
I don't want to think about that date anymore...not right now. I can't right now.
What I wouldn't give for a do-over in so many areas. A do-over of the 10 days before October 6th, to see if I lied perfectly still and didnt' move an inch, if Logan would have made it. Well, nevermind that. If it was a do-over where I 'knew' it was a do-over, I would simply have a c-section early, at 34 weeks. Yes, it's early. But Ella was perfectly fine at 35 weeks, and if Logan had just been born, just gotten OUT of me sometime in the 10 days prior, he would be alive. Alive and here. Alive and sleeping in the crib with Ella right now. Here. He would be here. I imagine it all the time, what it would be like. I can't look at Ella and not wonder what Logan would be doing next to her. What they would be doing together. She is so robbed by this. That is what is most unfair. That she doesn't get to grow up with her brother, her twin. That she didn't get to continue sharing this world with him, the same way she shared their world in the womb. I hate this for her. I know the option exists to not ever even tell her about him. But that's impossible. It's an option that DOESN'T exist in my mind. To not tell her is to take away from HIM, and I won't do that. He deserves to have her love and she deserves to know about him, to know what happened.
I don't know. It's getting harder and harder in some ways. the more she grows, the more I share with her, the more laughter and smiles she brings into my life, the more aware I am of how it would be to have them both. The more aware I am of what I am missing, what we are missing, but most of all, what SHE is missing-her brother.
October 6, 2009 is just around the corner. I know I will fight with all of my mental power to make time slow, to fight to keep it from coming. But I know I will lose and it will come, no matter how much I wish it wouldn't.
Before then, we've got Ellas surgery this coming week, that hurdle to jump. Then there is Logans headstone to be put up in the following weeks.
And then a birthday to...to what? to plan? I don't know that I can have a big party. I haven't reconciled how to feel that day. I know when it comes down to it, I won't have much control over however I end up feeling. I had decided right after losing Logan/having Ella that I would use October 5th as the date of the 'anniversary of Logans death", since that is technically the "date" we found out (late evening), and leave October 6th for Ellas birthday, a celebration of Ellas life. But no matter how specifically I separate them, they are the same in my mind. I know they both came into this world at the same time-October 6th-one alive and healthy and one already gone, too late to save.
I don't want to think about that date anymore...not right now. I can't right now.
a letter for Logan
My sweet baby boy,
I miss you so much. Maybe that sounds crazy to everybody else, maybe that’s why I don’t talk to everybody else about you anymore. They don’t understand. They’ll never understand. But you understand. You know.
I miss you like crazy. I miss everything about you, all the things I don’t even know. I wish there was some way to bring you back, just for a moment even-so I could see your eyes, or smell your head, and hold you. Oh how I want to hold you in my arms. To feel your skin warm and soft the way it’s supposed to be, pulsing with life. You were cold when I held you, you were already gone, already in Pappaw’s arms, warm with him.
Your sister is beautiful and perfect. I wish you could be here with us. Sometimes it’s hard to pick her up from day care because I see her with the other babies. One of those other babies should be you. Oh Logan, you should be here. You should be next to her. You should be giggling with her, looking at her, even screaming with her. Every day I think “what am I going to do without Logan?” And yet every day passes without you. I don’t know why it makes you sad to not have something you never had. I don’t know why but it does. It leaves you with a hole in your heart that can never be filled, by anyone. Not your daddy, not your sister, not another baby. I could have ten more and I’d still miss YOU with every part of me. And every single day. Not a day has passed that I haven’t thought of you. Not a single day. And not a single day ever will. Barely an hour has even passed without thinking of you. And certainly not a moment has passed that I didn’t love you. Sometimes I think of you in my belly, moving, and I smile. But most of the time I think of when they said you were gone. You had been gone a few days but in my world, in my mind, it’s like you were there one second and all was right with the world, and the next second they said you were gone and it was wrong. It was all wrong. It didn’t seem possible. Oh my precious baby, my life changed right then and there. Mommy is not the same. Mommy will never be the same without you. I will go on, but I will never be whole again. I will love Ella with all that I have and all that I am, but I will always know that you should be beside her. The space next to Ella should always be filled with you. You belong here. You belong with me. And you’re not. And that makes me sadder than I could ever describe.
I love you so much. People write about love all the time but no one has yet figured out how to express just how much you love someone when it’s just sooo much. I’m no different. That’s how I love you and how I love Ella. I wish I could show you how much, I wish I could know for certain that you knew how much I love you and how badly I wish you were here. I dreamed of having a baby for so so long. I ached inside for the chance to be a mom to just one baby. And then I was going to have TWO. A chance to be a mom to two perfect babies. One boy and one girl. Oh the plans I had for the two of you. The thoughts in my mind, the dreams in my sleep, the hopes in my heart for you both. I would daydream of little scenarios. Alternating feeds, battling bed time, the logistics of bath time for two. The cost, the stress, the exhaustion I know would all happen…none of it mattered when it came to the love. The love outweighed it all. There is enough love for you both, even now. There is a lot of sadness and a lot of anger and a lot of tears. But there is so much love too. I try to keep the love in a place separate from the sadness and the anger. Because I feel it all, but I don’t want the sadness to touch the love.
Logan, I hope you can see me. I hope you know my heart. I hope you can not only feel my love for you, but my love for Ella. I hope you know that when I smile and feel happy, it does not ever mean I don’t want you here or that I am okay without you. I would give my life to have you here. I would gladly trade places with you if it meant you could be here, even without me. I would go to Pappaw and MawMaw and you could come here with Daddy and with Nana and Poppa. But I can’t do that. I am here and I have Ella with me. You must know that she is what makes me smile here. She didn’t ask to be the survivor and I don’t want her to ever feel that I love one of you more than the other. Your death is not more important than her life. And her life is not more important than yours. You are both my sweet, precious, perfect babies and I love you both more than I could ever describe, more than I could ever explain, more than I even know myself. You fill my heart and it runs over for you both.
I will love you till the day I day, Logan, till the day I see you again. Then I will be able to tell you, face to face. I don’t know if you’ll still be a tiny baby that I’ll then get to see change before my eyes….or how any of that will work. In my mind, I imagine seeing you and running towards you and scooping you up in my arms and kissing your face and looking into your eyes while I hold your face in my hands and tell you how much I love you, how much I missed you. Then I will kiss you more and hold you more and squeeze you close. And then we will wait together, you and I….for Ella. She will come too one day and we can both run to her and we’ll all three be together, holding each other closely, just like we started, the three of us.
I love you baby boy. I don’t want to end this…letter or whatever it is. I don’t know how to end it.
I just love you, forever and always, with all of me.
Let Pappaw and MawMaw hold on to you, until I can hold on to you myself. When I do, I will never let you go.
I miss you so much. Maybe that sounds crazy to everybody else, maybe that’s why I don’t talk to everybody else about you anymore. They don’t understand. They’ll never understand. But you understand. You know.
I miss you like crazy. I miss everything about you, all the things I don’t even know. I wish there was some way to bring you back, just for a moment even-so I could see your eyes, or smell your head, and hold you. Oh how I want to hold you in my arms. To feel your skin warm and soft the way it’s supposed to be, pulsing with life. You were cold when I held you, you were already gone, already in Pappaw’s arms, warm with him.
Your sister is beautiful and perfect. I wish you could be here with us. Sometimes it’s hard to pick her up from day care because I see her with the other babies. One of those other babies should be you. Oh Logan, you should be here. You should be next to her. You should be giggling with her, looking at her, even screaming with her. Every day I think “what am I going to do without Logan?” And yet every day passes without you. I don’t know why it makes you sad to not have something you never had. I don’t know why but it does. It leaves you with a hole in your heart that can never be filled, by anyone. Not your daddy, not your sister, not another baby. I could have ten more and I’d still miss YOU with every part of me. And every single day. Not a day has passed that I haven’t thought of you. Not a single day. And not a single day ever will. Barely an hour has even passed without thinking of you. And certainly not a moment has passed that I didn’t love you. Sometimes I think of you in my belly, moving, and I smile. But most of the time I think of when they said you were gone. You had been gone a few days but in my world, in my mind, it’s like you were there one second and all was right with the world, and the next second they said you were gone and it was wrong. It was all wrong. It didn’t seem possible. Oh my precious baby, my life changed right then and there. Mommy is not the same. Mommy will never be the same without you. I will go on, but I will never be whole again. I will love Ella with all that I have and all that I am, but I will always know that you should be beside her. The space next to Ella should always be filled with you. You belong here. You belong with me. And you’re not. And that makes me sadder than I could ever describe.
I love you so much. People write about love all the time but no one has yet figured out how to express just how much you love someone when it’s just sooo much. I’m no different. That’s how I love you and how I love Ella. I wish I could show you how much, I wish I could know for certain that you knew how much I love you and how badly I wish you were here. I dreamed of having a baby for so so long. I ached inside for the chance to be a mom to just one baby. And then I was going to have TWO. A chance to be a mom to two perfect babies. One boy and one girl. Oh the plans I had for the two of you. The thoughts in my mind, the dreams in my sleep, the hopes in my heart for you both. I would daydream of little scenarios. Alternating feeds, battling bed time, the logistics of bath time for two. The cost, the stress, the exhaustion I know would all happen…none of it mattered when it came to the love. The love outweighed it all. There is enough love for you both, even now. There is a lot of sadness and a lot of anger and a lot of tears. But there is so much love too. I try to keep the love in a place separate from the sadness and the anger. Because I feel it all, but I don’t want the sadness to touch the love.
Logan, I hope you can see me. I hope you know my heart. I hope you can not only feel my love for you, but my love for Ella. I hope you know that when I smile and feel happy, it does not ever mean I don’t want you here or that I am okay without you. I would give my life to have you here. I would gladly trade places with you if it meant you could be here, even without me. I would go to Pappaw and MawMaw and you could come here with Daddy and with Nana and Poppa. But I can’t do that. I am here and I have Ella with me. You must know that she is what makes me smile here. She didn’t ask to be the survivor and I don’t want her to ever feel that I love one of you more than the other. Your death is not more important than her life. And her life is not more important than yours. You are both my sweet, precious, perfect babies and I love you both more than I could ever describe, more than I could ever explain, more than I even know myself. You fill my heart and it runs over for you both.
I will love you till the day I day, Logan, till the day I see you again. Then I will be able to tell you, face to face. I don’t know if you’ll still be a tiny baby that I’ll then get to see change before my eyes….or how any of that will work. In my mind, I imagine seeing you and running towards you and scooping you up in my arms and kissing your face and looking into your eyes while I hold your face in my hands and tell you how much I love you, how much I missed you. Then I will kiss you more and hold you more and squeeze you close. And then we will wait together, you and I….for Ella. She will come too one day and we can both run to her and we’ll all three be together, holding each other closely, just like we started, the three of us.
I love you baby boy. I don’t want to end this…letter or whatever it is. I don’t know how to end it.
I just love you, forever and always, with all of me.
Let Pappaw and MawMaw hold on to you, until I can hold on to you myself. When I do, I will never let you go.
for Logan
Your smile is engraved in my mind
Your spirit intertwined with my spirit
Your beauty is stamped upon my heart
YOU are forever ingrained in my soul, in who I am.
A part of my body for months
A part of my soul forever more.
I will run to you as fast as I can
When I see your face again
I will lift you into my arms
And never let you go.
I want to hold you
Touch you
Kiss you
I want all the things I can’t have now
I will have them with you one day
I will finally hear you call me mommy
Finally look into your eyes
Finally see your beautiful smile again
I am not afraid to die
For I have you waiting for me.
I will come one day Logan
Mommy will hold you again
I love you forever little man
Your spirit intertwined with my spirit
Your beauty is stamped upon my heart
YOU are forever ingrained in my soul, in who I am.
A part of my body for months
A part of my soul forever more.
I will run to you as fast as I can
When I see your face again
I will lift you into my arms
And never let you go.
I want to hold you
Touch you
Kiss you
I want all the things I can’t have now
I will have them with you one day
I will finally hear you call me mommy
Finally look into your eyes
Finally see your beautiful smile again
I am not afraid to die
For I have you waiting for me.
I will come one day Logan
Mommy will hold you again
I love you forever little man
03/03/09
Logan,
You will be 5 months old in a few days. I imagine you would be doing all the things your sister is doing. She’s smiling and cooing and has rolled over. I bet you’d be doing all of that too. I would give anything to see it, any of it. Just for a moment to see you again. I would love to see your smile. It’s one of the things I long for most. I saw it on the ultrasound so I have a little taste of what I’m missing. Your smile is beautiful just like you, that much I know.
More than anything though, I just want to hold you in my arms and tell you that I love you. To look into your eyes and call you my little man.
I want so much. I want time with you. Time to study you, to hold you, to just hold your cheek to my face, to smell you, to touch your hair. And I want to hear you cry. And I even want to change your diaper, I want you to throw up all over me, I want to be so tired from being up all night with you and your sister that I can hardly keep my eyes open. I want all of that, all of the good and all of the “bad”.
My precious boy I miss you more than words could ever come close to describing. It’s a feeling so deep within me. It’s a sadness more than anything but it’s also something else, something only the three of us share, you me and Ella. We were one for many months and that’s all I have of you are your movements in my body, your kicks, your hits. Ella has the memory of your heartbeats and your kicks and hits to her. Only we knew you in that special way. I promise you, I swear to you, I will make sure she knows how special your bond is. She will cherish you, I know she will. Even after she forgets the womb, there will be a part of her that will always remember SOMETHING. And I know she remembers now. I don’t care what anyone says. She stared at your picture this morning, for a long time. And then she looked at it at one point and looked at me, then looked back at your picture, and she smiled such a big smile. She loves you Logan, just like I do and I’ll remind her that she loved you from the beginning. And I’ll tell her always how much you love her. I will encourage her to talk to you, to share with you.
You will be 5 months old in a few days. I imagine you would be doing all the things your sister is doing. She’s smiling and cooing and has rolled over. I bet you’d be doing all of that too. I would give anything to see it, any of it. Just for a moment to see you again. I would love to see your smile. It’s one of the things I long for most. I saw it on the ultrasound so I have a little taste of what I’m missing. Your smile is beautiful just like you, that much I know.
More than anything though, I just want to hold you in my arms and tell you that I love you. To look into your eyes and call you my little man.
I want so much. I want time with you. Time to study you, to hold you, to just hold your cheek to my face, to smell you, to touch your hair. And I want to hear you cry. And I even want to change your diaper, I want you to throw up all over me, I want to be so tired from being up all night with you and your sister that I can hardly keep my eyes open. I want all of that, all of the good and all of the “bad”.
My precious boy I miss you more than words could ever come close to describing. It’s a feeling so deep within me. It’s a sadness more than anything but it’s also something else, something only the three of us share, you me and Ella. We were one for many months and that’s all I have of you are your movements in my body, your kicks, your hits. Ella has the memory of your heartbeats and your kicks and hits to her. Only we knew you in that special way. I promise you, I swear to you, I will make sure she knows how special your bond is. She will cherish you, I know she will. Even after she forgets the womb, there will be a part of her that will always remember SOMETHING. And I know she remembers now. I don’t care what anyone says. She stared at your picture this morning, for a long time. And then she looked at it at one point and looked at me, then looked back at your picture, and she smiled such a big smile. She loves you Logan, just like I do and I’ll remind her that she loved you from the beginning. And I’ll tell her always how much you love her. I will encourage her to talk to you, to share with you.
12/31/08
12/31/08
The end of 2008. It’s the end of the year that held a lot of pain. In a way I am glad to see it go. It is the year I lost Pappaw and it is the year that my precious baby boy died. But mostly, I am just sad. Sad that it is the end of the year that held the few short months that Logan even existed. Every day that goes by I am further away from the day that I held him in my arms, further from the day I looked at his face for the first and last time, further from the day I said goodbye and further from all the days he was inside of me and we were happy, just me and him and Ella.
The further away I get from October 6th, the more and more Logan is forgotten to everybody but me. I know this, I am not blind, nor dumb. I know he is only THAT special to me. Only I love him that much. Only Ella and I really knew him. I can’t expect it of others. But sometimes I do. Too often I do actually. Too often I reach out to the same people who continue to disappoint me. It’s absolutely pointless. I don’t know why, but I keep doing it. I think it’s because next to wanting Logan back, what I want more than ANYTHING is for others to just understand. Just UNDERSTAND how bad this hurts and you wouldn’t say half the things you say. I don’t want you to experience it. I just want you to understand. And you never will. Grief is a very lonely place; a very, very lonely place. That’s something I learn more and more each day.
Someone brought a little baby boy to my job the other day. I broke down crying. I tried not to but I couldn’t help it. I can’t be that close to a baby boy right now. My baby boy is dead and seeing another one around the same age is just impossible for me. I ache for Logan every day. I keep thinking that maybe one day I won’t miss him as much, but it hasn’t happened yet. I don’t think it will. And really I don’t want it to. If I stop missing him so much, I’m afraid I’ll be forgetting him.
I can’t even PICTURE my life in 10 years. I’m scared I’ll have a Christmas where I don’t mention him or that a day will go by and he won’t cross my mind. I don’t want a day like that to come. I don’t want to forget him. I wish now I had paid even more attention while I was pregnant. I wish I could remember every single kick. I remember the day I saw him on the 4d ultrasound. It was the first time I laid eyes on him. I remember the tears rolling down my face. There was my baby. MY baby. And he smiled at me. Oh thank you God for letting him smile at me. It’s the only smile I ever saw.
The end of 2008. It’s the end of the year that held a lot of pain. In a way I am glad to see it go. It is the year I lost Pappaw and it is the year that my precious baby boy died. But mostly, I am just sad. Sad that it is the end of the year that held the few short months that Logan even existed. Every day that goes by I am further away from the day that I held him in my arms, further from the day I looked at his face for the first and last time, further from the day I said goodbye and further from all the days he was inside of me and we were happy, just me and him and Ella.
The further away I get from October 6th, the more and more Logan is forgotten to everybody but me. I know this, I am not blind, nor dumb. I know he is only THAT special to me. Only I love him that much. Only Ella and I really knew him. I can’t expect it of others. But sometimes I do. Too often I do actually. Too often I reach out to the same people who continue to disappoint me. It’s absolutely pointless. I don’t know why, but I keep doing it. I think it’s because next to wanting Logan back, what I want more than ANYTHING is for others to just understand. Just UNDERSTAND how bad this hurts and you wouldn’t say half the things you say. I don’t want you to experience it. I just want you to understand. And you never will. Grief is a very lonely place; a very, very lonely place. That’s something I learn more and more each day.
Someone brought a little baby boy to my job the other day. I broke down crying. I tried not to but I couldn’t help it. I can’t be that close to a baby boy right now. My baby boy is dead and seeing another one around the same age is just impossible for me. I ache for Logan every day. I keep thinking that maybe one day I won’t miss him as much, but it hasn’t happened yet. I don’t think it will. And really I don’t want it to. If I stop missing him so much, I’m afraid I’ll be forgetting him.
I can’t even PICTURE my life in 10 years. I’m scared I’ll have a Christmas where I don’t mention him or that a day will go by and he won’t cross my mind. I don’t want a day like that to come. I don’t want to forget him. I wish now I had paid even more attention while I was pregnant. I wish I could remember every single kick. I remember the day I saw him on the 4d ultrasound. It was the first time I laid eyes on him. I remember the tears rolling down my face. There was my baby. MY baby. And he smiled at me. Oh thank you God for letting him smile at me. It’s the only smile I ever saw.
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