Actually April 3rd. April 2nd I went to your spot and picked up your things so that they could mow and clean up the cemetery. It looked so bare, but then I decided to leave the flowers Mary had brought. I know by now they're gone, but they were looking a bit ragged anyway, and I just couldn't leave it with nothing there at all.
Tomorrow I'll take your things back again. I now have an alarm set for 6:30 pm every Tuesday that says "cemetery" because I don't want to even chance forgetting to pick them up and losing them forever.
Oh, kiddo...
It almost felt like a really bad April Fool's joke, with the joke being on me, 'cause you're not here.
Yesterday I also went up to Primary's. I've been twice before but once was to meetings over in the clinic building, in a part that you never went to, and the other to a meeting in the main hospital but again, in an auditorium that you never saw.
Yesterday I went to see someone in the PICU. It was the overflow section, so not where you left, but in the room you were in before you became so critical. It actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but it still seemed strange to walk onto the unit.
And because it was the overflow, I didn't have to call in to be admitted. I just walked in and back there. But that wasn't you in the bed this time. I think I did startle a few people. They were rounding just after I got there, and then pulmonology came by. Both times I just kinda sat back in the corner. After all, it wasn't my child this time.
And the mama, my friend, well, she's pretty awesome. She's just starting the trach part of their journey, and together, she and her girl are going to rock it! I took her some of your old (unused) trachs so her kids could play with them and she could do "surgery" on a doll for her daughter.
Do you remember when we trached Bunny? And how many times you decannulated him? And how I freaked out until I realized it wasn't "your" trach you were holding or had thrown on the floor? I think you thought that was pretty funny. I also think I can credit you with more than a few of my (now many) gray hairs.
Today Mary, Michael and I went to the Manti Temple open house. It was beautiful, and not something we could have really done with you. It is very much not wheelchair accessible. Plus, we stood in the sun for about two hours waiting to get in. I'm grateful we had the opportunity, and I also remember taking you to the Saratoga Springs open house. And the Provo City Center one. But while I just enjoyed being with you in Provo, in Saratoga I felt the whisperings of the end. As we sat in the Celestial room there, I remember thinking this would be the last time I got to be in a temple with you. And it was.
Oh, Aaron, I feel so selfish. Your time here is done, and I'm now much more able to be present for your brother, but I still miss you so much, on a visceral level, a deep celular part of me hurts.
I've heard that when a mother carries a child, there is a transfer of some of the fetal cells so that forever after, her body carries part of the child. So does that mean that the umbilical cord is never truly severed? And is that why I feel like part of me is now missing, lost, gone and I ache to find you?
You know, I learned the other day that in February, plots in our little cemetery went up significantly. When I mentioned that to Daddy, he replied that he would have gladly paid the difference if that meant you had been here just three more months.
Me too, little man, me too.
But it would not have been fair to you. Your body was so tired, your soul so weary. You fought for so long and you deserve to rest. I just wish I could convince my heart of this.
BEFORE
In my before,
I would have never imagined
grief to be such a
penetrating experience.
But today, I know better.
Your absence is felt on a cellular level.
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