Dear Baby,

They say the greatest pain a mother could ever feel is labor. But I think that’s a bold-faced lie. There’s an even greater pain waiting just around the corner for me when you get sick for the first time. There’s also excruciating pain when you fall off your bike and scrape your knee. There’s pain when you say you hate me for the first time. There’s pain when I see your room after you leave for college. But I will never feel a greater pain than when I lowered your tiny body into the ground. 

You see, baby, even though you’re gone, I have not stopped being a parent. I still have all this knowledge that I planned on passing on to you. You, who I only got to know briefly as the person living inside my belly, then as the colicky baby who cried all night long, and then as the clingy baby who wouldn’t let me use the bathroom by myself. Then I was supposed to get to know you as the high-achieving child/adult you would become (or a laid-back, test-stealing kind if you take after your dad instead of me.)

I was ready to answer all the questions you’d incessantly ask me: Why is the sky blue? Why is your hair brown? Why are my eyes so green? Why are yours blue?

All of which I’ve fully prepared to answer, while your dad has prepared to fully wing to oblivion.

I know it’s selfish of me to want you around because I need you, but I do. I’m sorry. 

It’s not like we weren’t given a warning. They said you had an 80% chance of making it. We believed, like most people would, you would be part of that 80%. I suppose everyone in the 20% thinks they are part of the 80% until they find out they aren’t. It doesn’t matter, though. It still hit us like a ton of bricks. (Side note: bricks are red rectangular things that hide behind the walls you used to draw on.)

But why am I telling you all of this? You were there. You know what happened. Neither of us were prepared for this. No one can ever be prepared for this. 

When you closed your eyes, I thought I could still talk to you anyway. So I kept talking. I kept brushing your short hair against my skin, kept kissing your blushing red cheeks, kept holding you tight. 

Then they took you away and now I can’t see you anymore. You’re way down below and I’m not allowed to join you there. Not yet, anyway. 

I wish it could’ve been me instead of you. At least you’ll have your father. I’d like to say we’ve been holding it together. But what can I say? You’re the glue that’s been keeping us together. 

Now I can barely look at him cause you got so much of him in your face. Now, he looks like you. 

Since I can’t talk to you anymore, I’m going to impart some of the knowledge here. I’ll list them in the order I thought you might need as you get older. I hope you’re ready.:

• Always brush your teeth twice a day, after breakfast and before bed.
• Riding a bike is easy. Keep paddling and don’t stop. (Side note: this is not the case with skateboards.)
• Candy and chocolate will make you hyper and give you cavities. But they’re delicious.
• Skip school once in a while, perfect attendance is a scam.
• Any teacher who makes you feel uncomfortable is not a good teacher. Tell your dad/me/any adult how you feel.
• If you like a girl(or guy) tell them how you feel. Politely. If they feel the same way, great. If they don’t, you should still be nice to them.
• Never deny how you feel on the inside. Those feelings will come knocking anyway.
• Be whoever you want to be, anyone who tells you the contrary is either lying or afraid.
• Above all else, be happy. 

That’s about all I can fit in these pages. There’s so much more I can’t tell you. I wish I can at least have one conversation with an adult you. I imagine you being such a witty man. A tall man (slightly shorter than your dad) with a crooked smile and long eyelashes. A man who can pick me up easily and carry me around. An honest, funny, kind man who can never turn his back on those people who ask for your signature in support of their cause. Just as I mourn your toothless grin and tiny fingers, I mourn him too.

But I will forever cherish the memory of us arguing over you wanting to have only chicken nuggets for dinner. You kept yelling CHICKEN and clapping your hands together. If I wasn’t so concerned about your nutrition, then I’d probably laugh so loud people would think I’m crazy. 

I’m sorry for making you eat broccoli. I’m sorry for giving you the purple medicine you didn’t like. I’m sorry for the vaccine shots. I’m sorry for the needles they put in your hand and the connected annoying plastic tube you kept batting at.

Had I known, I wouldn’t spend our last days that way. I would take you to see all the shows. I would run around the parks with you. Build sandcastles with you. And, more importantly, I would squeeze in one more hug and I promise, this one time, I’d never let go. 

I will love you forever. And ever. And ever. To infinity and beyond (I’ll keep your Buzz Lightyear comforter with me until the end of time. Your dad will simply have to learn how to share.)

I’m sorry. I really am. I’m so, so sorry.

Until we meet again, baby. I sure hope that it’s soon. 

Love you forever,

Mama