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.