Baby boy, today is your birthday. Somehow two years have come and gone. I sat with a friend the other day who asked me - doesn't it feel like it's been ten years and only five seconds all in one? I thought I'd be better this time around. I thought I'd have more peace. I thought having lived this loss after one full year and now a second would have given my heart more resolve on this day.
I thought wrong.
I've avoided my emotions for a while now. I've felt them building, the anxiety that can come with it, but I wanted to stay in the happy and not go to the place where the pain that you're not here is too overwhelming to bear sometimes. In this second year, I've talked about you more freely. I have smiled through the pain when I say I have one in Heaven and one at home. I can speak about loss now without tears every single time. I can smile when I say your name. But when I'm alone with my thoughts, or look long enough at your sister in my arms, the emotions I've tried to shut out begin to catch up to me. The life we didn't get to live and the memories we didn't get to create consume me.
Up until October 15, 2016, I only imagined all the things in life we've missed without you here. But starting at 5:08 am when Hadley was born and every minute since, I have learned just how much of the ordinary, everyday life we lost without you here. I didn't know just how fulfilling the exhaustion of parenting was, just how much love can be felt from a neck nuzzle or smile, and just how much the little hugs or tugs of the finger can mean. I knew what we didn't have but I didn't know the depth of how much it hurt not to have it, until I did have it. I look at her and if I look long enough, it rips at my heart that I never got to look into your eyes. She loves to stare at us before breaking into a smile and it is adorable. Sometimes as she stares, I can't help but wonder what is going through her mind as she looks back at me, and then I think about how you never got to see me, your Mommy. You heard me, as you grew in my belly but you never saw me. I watch your Daddy with her and I get choked up often because he's just so good at it. He's an amazing Daddy and he should have had his son to be that to as well.
I avoided it for a long period of time because there was only so much my heart could endure, but I have allowed myself to see little ones around your age. We see them often now, especially as your sister has started daycare and we see kids of all ages. Whenever I pass a little one in the 2's class, it gives me pause every time. I wonder who you'd look like. Your sister is your Daddy's carbon copy, and you looked like me when you were born, but would you still? How would you and Hadley interact right now? What would you love to play with? I received my first pieces of art work from Hadley and decided to hang it along the new staircase and grow it into the playroom. I wonder how many pictures you would have drawn for us, how many Hudson originals I'd have already hung.
Every night before Hadley goes to bed, I sit with all my loves in my lap - Hadley, Georgie and the Hudson bunny. We rock together, we read stories, we snuggle. Sometimes Mommy cries. I wish you were here with us to make our family whole. I wish our lives had been able to experience your smile and laughter these two years. I want it all back, everything that was stolen from us two years ago when your heart stopped. All of it, I want it, I miss it. My mother's heart will never stop yearning for that life with you here too.
Today I don't want to get out of bed. Today I want to shut everything out. I want to cry until I can't cry anymore - which there are always more tears, I've learned. Yesterday I honored you in a special way. Next week we continue to honor you by furthering your legacy at your memorial golf tournament. But right now? Right now I just want you. I hear them playing in the other room and would give anything to walk in there to see Daddy, Georgie, and both our babies - my two year old and my 7 month old, with a birthday breakfast and balloons. We'd be starting our Hudson Day, your second birthday. I imagine you and see you with brown curls that maybe we'd have let grow out a little bit. I see you with my blue eyes but your Daddy's smile, that matches your sister's. Hadley smiles at you and you make her laugh. You make noises at each other and I raise an eyebrow thinking it's started, your own little language you keep from us. If only I could have five minutes of that on this day. Instead I'll close my eyes, cry the tears and live that scene in my mind. Over and over. I'll allow the warmth it creates in my heart to carry me through today when all I have are the memories of holding you when you were born, then twelve hours later, kissing you goodbye and watching as you were taken in a strangers arms until the door closed and you were gone.
We made you a birthday card and will tie it to a birthday balloon to send you in heaven. We'll have a cake for you that a special friend made for us to have in your honor. We will visit you at the church, and go on a walk trying to enjoy the outdoors where the sunbeams are like your smile, and the breeze in the air is like you playing all around us. I'll hold Hadley a little closer, I'll snuggle Georgie a little longer, I'll love your Daddy a little harder.
My heart breaks all over again on tough days like today, but it beats on. Happy Hudson Day, baby boy.
I love you with everything I have, always.
Mommy
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