A Year Ago Today...

November 19, 2023

Dear Aaron,

It's been one year exactly since your last (typical) discharge. 

We had such high hopes! We thought we had a good plan in place. The PICU docs (along with cardiology, pulmonology, infectious disease, and others) worked really hard to optimize your health. We finally conquered that nasty tracheitis that caused so much trouble. 

And when we left, you were smiling.

That smile was part of what Dr. L and I talked about ten days after you died.

She remembered it, remembered the joy you exhibited, told me it was proof that we were NOT doing too much, that we were supporting you in the life you loved. 

Oh baby...

It's been almost a year, not quite five more weeks until your angelversary. 

I don't often get caught off guard anymore, not nearly as much anyway. Smells and sounds still do me in. 

But the fridge . . .  

Your meds and food were always on the bottom shelf on the left. Everything else in the fridge gets moved around, always has. But that was where your things always were, for 13 1/2 years. Just shy of 11 months without them, to see that empty space still cuts me.

I miss you, Aaron. I go by your grave to check on you every night after work. I mean, it's not like you're really going anywhere, or there's much to do for you, but I have to. I don't now how to not do the little I still can. 

So I go by and replace the butterflies that get tattered in the wind. I smooth my hand over the granite, gently touch your smiling face, and trace the letters of your name.

I guess you're all tucked in.  I covered you with your weighted blanket, the one that says "I love you" over and over and over on it, just before we closed the casket. 

And my heart still aches...

Miss you . . .

Love you.

Love,
Mama

"These days grief seems like walking on a frozen river; most of the time he feels safe enough, but there is always that danger he will plunge through."

David Nicholls