a little birthday prayer

Dear Nicholas

My birthday letter to you is a prayer from my heart to Gods ears. 

Dear God 

They say everything happens for a reason? Maybe your plans are better than my dreams. But to think that the first thing my little nicstar saw was the face of Jesus, makes me feel relieved. He knew no pain, he knew no evil, he knew no sin. He will always be our purest little angel up in heaven. With every fibre in my being I would have loved to wish my nicstar happy birthday here on earth today, but since I will never get the chance, would you please hold him close in your lap and wish him happy birthday from his mom, dad and sisters. Tell him all about us. Tell him how we love him with everything we have, how we tried so hard to protect him and how we miss him beyond measure. Place a gentle birthday kiss on his forehead from us, a kiss filled with so much love and tenderness. Blow out his candles with him and make him laugh, because I know it's the most beautiful sound. My baby boy, hold him always!

Amen! 

Today. Tomorrow. Forever. My Nicholas, my baby boy, happy heavenly birthday. I will love you with every breath I take. 

Love Mom

Dear Nicstar

Dear Nicstar

Happy birthday my special boy! May you be blowing out 5 beautiful candles today in heaven! 

I wanted to write you a letter today so here it is. 

5 years! 5 years of not having you here with us. It is so surreal to think that 5 years ago you were kicking in my tummy and then just like that... Gone!

It has been 5 years of missing you. 5 years of loving you. 5 years of having you as our most precious guardian angel. 5 years of wishing you back. And 5 years of learning. 

So here are 5 things you have taught mommy! 

Your loss was a loss like no other. Sometimes child loss is misunderstood by so many. Like understanding that our 'good days' are still harder than you could ever imagine as we are walking this earth without a very special part of us. And that compassion and love is all we need. Not advice. So what have you taught me my dear son. 

1. Love never dies! 

There will never come a day, hour, minute that I will ever stop loving you. I will love you unconditionally for the rest of my days here on earth. I will speak and always want to hear your name just as all parents speak about their children. I will keep speaking about you as naturally as I speak about your sisters, because I love you just as much. And I know its taboo and hard for people to hear but you are my son and as hard as our culture doesn't talk about child loss, I will keep talking about you as your life was cut short but your love will live forever. 

2) I will grieve for a lifetime! Full stop. 

There is no 'moving on' or 'get over it'. There is no bow, or fix or solution to my heartache. There is no ends to the ways I will grieve and for how long it will be. There is no glue for my broken heart or pain remedy for my soul. There is no going back in time. For as long as I breathe, I will grieve and ache and long for you with all my heart and soul. There will never come a time where I don't think about who you would have been, how you would have been the perfect big bother or how perfectly woven you would have been in our family. You are my only son. And there will always be a milestone missed. A future altered forever. This is why grief last a lifetime. The ripple effect lasts forever. At every first day of school. At every holiday and birthday. At every graduation. The bleeding never stops. 

3)The empty space never becomes less empty!

That empty space in a room. In a picture. In our lives will never be filled. It will be empty forever. There is and will always be an empty space in our lives, in our family. A forever hole in our hearts. As empty is still empty. Missing is still missing. Nothing can fill it. Minute after minute. Hour after hour. Day after day. Month after month. Year after year... That space will remain. 

4) No matter how long it has been, holidays and birthdays never become easier!

Imagine not having one of your children with you for these events. Unthinkable right? So that is why this is so damn hard. Nothing more. 

5) Because I know deep sorrow. I also know unspeakable joy! 

Though I will grieve the death of you, my Nicstar, forever and then some. It does not mean my life is lacking happiness and joy. Quite the opposite actually. Through all of this, I now love stronger. I laugh louder. Life is more precious now. The joy I experience in every moment with your sisters and daddy is more profound now and more intense. I embrace every moment even the hard ones. I will be there for them no matter what and I will love them with my whole heart more fiercely than I ever knew possible. Because of losing you, my son, and knowing that unimaginable pain and suffering - When the joy comes it flows through every pore in my body. I feel it all. Deeply. I embrace it and thank God for it. My life is more rich and vibrant, not despite my loss but because of it. As with grief comes little gifts. Gifts that we must embrace and hold onto. These gifts don't make any of this 'worth it' in any way but they are a means for survival. As there is nothing and I mean nothing that I will ever take for granted especially when it comes to your sisters and our family. And this I can be thankful to you Nicstar. Being your mom Is the best gift I have ever been given and not even death can take that away. 

I love you now. I will love you forever. 

Always Mom. 

A little prayer

Dear God 

They say everything happens for a reason? Maybe your plans are better than my dreams. But to think that the first thing my little nicstar saw was the face of Jesus, makes me feel relieved. He knew no pain, he knew no evil, he knew no sin. He will always be our purest little angel up in heaven. I would have loved to tell my nicstar about you, but since I will never get the chance, would you please hold him close in your lap and tell him about his mom and dad. How we love him with everything we have, how we tried so hard to protect him and how we miss him beyond measure. Place a gentle kiss on his forehead from us, a kiss filled with so much love from mom and dad! 

Amen! 

My broken/mended heart

Dear Nicholas 

The day you left us, you took my heart with you and in its place I was left with a shattered resemblance of a heart. An object broken into a thousand pieces. An empty space longing for our son back. We were left wanting. We were left hurt. We were left without you. 

And since that day, all we have been trying to do, is piece our hearts back together. Little by little. Trying to find a place for the jaggered edges. Trying to find a little heartbeat again. A beat that doesn't ache everytime it happens, or take your breath away. A peaceful beat that tells us that our hearts have healed just a little. 

So our time has come, and I thought to myself, this is it, my heart can finally start to heal. I can finally feel this outmost joy and feel some peace. But I was surprised that it didn't happened as I thought. Yes, I am feeling a lot of joy. And yes, I am feeling more at peace as what we have wanted for so long is happening. But I still feel like my heart is broken. Slightly mended but still broken. And this struck me as strange. 

I always thought that the moment I heard another little heartbeat I would feel like the world has righted itself and we would go back to normal. I would feel normal again. But I have learnt that, it is not true. I still feel very much changed. I still don't feel normal. 

I guess, what this has taught me, is that this is my normal. This is my new normal self. A happier self indeed but still a self with a piece of her heart very much missing. Very much empty. Very much still hurting. 

As you see Nic, my heart is still breaking for you. I still don't get to have you in my life. Yes, we are so very blessed with our little miracle, so very blessed and I am beyond happy that it has finally happened, but it doesn't bring you back and nothing ever will. Nothing will ever replace my Nicstar. For you are, and always will be my first born. You are, and always will be my son, a big brother! 

My broken heart may be slightly mended but it will always have a broken piece. It will always have a deep scar. It will always have a space with your name on it.

Always and forever, until we meet again! 

Love Mom 

Waves

Dear Nicholas

Today I felt like I was drowning. And that is weird since I'm a strong swimmer and would have never thought I would ever experience the sense of drowning. But today I did. 

I woke up with this gushing wave of sadness. A wave so huge that it took my breath away. I was unable to breathe. I had this crushing weight on my chest. Everything was closing in on me. I couldn't fight back, I just lay there with this pressure on my chest. I felt this wave crashing into my heart, over and over again. Breaking it into tiny pieces until you are left with nothing but grains of sand. You try to swim up to the light but as you reach the sign of fresh air another wave comes crashing down on you and the darkness just takes over until there is nothing left. No energy to swim back up. No energy to look up. You feel your lungs filling up with water. Water streaming out of your eyes. I want to scream for help but nothing. No words are able to surface. So you just lie there looking up at the light but know that today it is out of your reach. You know that you have no more energy to just swim up. You know that this is the hardest part, to just accept and let go. Because as soon as you relax and stop fighting, everything will be ok. You will find peace and float to the surface. 

But then you take to the water again, push yourself before you ready and know that this is not the last wave that is going to tear you apart. Your life from here on out is going to be filled with many more. So you need to learn how to swim. You need to learn how to keep afloat. You need to learn how to survive as hard as every breath, every step, every day is going be. 

I felt like I was drowning today. But I survived! 

I love you and miss you with everything I have. 

Love Mom 

Nothing about this is easy!

 

It's been a while

Dear Nicholas 

It's been a while since I wrote to you, my baby boy. 

I have been diving into another adventure to keep some happiness alive inside of me and most days it is working. I know you are my driving force and the voice inside my head telling me to focus and keep going. To keep reaching for my dreams and take charge of my life. It has been since the day I lost you that I have found a new meaning to life. 

Life is not just about going to work and pleasing people, doing the things you have to do, getting through the day, coming home and then getting a salary. That is not life. Life is not about how much money you make or what lifestyle you lead. Because if you live your life like that, how do you find the happiness everyday. 

I have learnt in these dark hours of my life that happiness is hard to come by. You can either be someone that wakes up and looks at life in the negative way. Someone who sees nothing but dark rays and grey clouds. Someone who will never show their laugh lines. Or you can be someone that opens her eyes, breathes in the new day, looks for even the little sprinkle of happiness in her wake to just allow her to get through the day. Because in dark days, how do you survive if you can't do that. 

I want to be that someone. I want to be that someone who has laugh lines and a happy sunshine glow. I want to make my gloomy day bright yellow again. 

And to achieve this, life has to be filled with dreams. Dreams that you wake up thinking about. Dreams that you stay up till midnight planning to achieve. Dreams that make your heart jump with just a little excitement. Dreams that one day will come true. Dreams of a mom that can stay home doing something she loves while being there for her children every day. 

And my Nicstar, it was ever since you became my angel that I obtained this new lease on life. That life is to short to say 'I will do it one day'. Because that 'one day' might never come! 

So I have stuck my nose into something that I know will make my dreams come true. My dream of having three beautiful children, two walking this earth and one learning to fly, and a mom that is able to be there for them every minute of the day. As my family will always come first. That is my dream. That is my journey. 

My dream is to firstly be a mom, to experience motherhood in all its beauty and to be the best wife and mother that I can be. And I know you will be guiding me every step of the way. That is my happiness. That is what gets me through my days. 

My soul. My beating heart. My everything. My Nicstar! 

I love you 

Mom