Thoughts On A Life Upended

Dear George,

My beautiful boy, my son. Somehow it has been a full year since you entered and left this world all at once. It has been the worst year of my life, trying to process your death, then losing your mother less than 3 months later. If you’d been born on your due date you would be almost 7 1/2 months now – you might have a few teeth and would be learning to sit up and crawl. I don’t know what color your hair or eyes were, but I know you were beautiful.

I can’t fully put into words how it felt holding you a year ago, born still, mourning your life and all our hopes and dreams for you, for us as a family. Our love for you is so, so strong despite the fact that we didn’t have the privileged of knowing you in life outside of my body.

None of this makes any more sense now than it did a year ago. My heart still aches for you. I can still close my eyes and find myself back in the hospital, learning that you would be entering this world too early, and reliving those precious few minutes we had with you after you were born still.

I’m sorry we didn’t take more time with you. I really, really wish we had. I regret that we handed you to them so quickly, to take you away. We were so sad and exhausted, having not slept in about 24 hours, and I just didn’t know. No one suggested otherwise, and I didn’t know that some people take much more time with their stillborn babies. Despite our brief time together, I can still feel you in my arms – you left such an imprint, just in those few minutes.

It’s so hard, because I feel like as the years go by, you’re might get lost in the flow of life. I don’t get the opportunity to talk about you much, even now, and I fear that as more time passes since our brief time together, that you’re going to fade into the background. I’m the only living person, outside of the hospital staff, who got to see you in person, hold you.

Even if your memory becomes a quiet memory, buried deep in my heart, know that you are our son. Even though you were born still, you are loved and will always have an important place in my heart. I suspect I will always think about what you would be doing at a given time if you had lived – 10 years from now I’ll be wondering what your birthday celebration would be like, for your first double-digit year, and 18 years from now I’ll probably be wondering what your high school graduation would be like.

I don’t know how to end this letter, so I’ll just say that I miss you. Although I didn’t know that you were George until you’d been delivered, after you were still, we loved you and knew you from your earliest moments. Your mother and I were so, SO excited when we knew you were growing within me, and I will always treasure our brief time together.

Love, Your Dad