You Mattered, You Still Matter

Dear Aaron,

Tomorrow is March 31, the last day of Trisomy Awareness month. 

I don't know what else to say. I don't know what people don't know. Maybe because I've been living this life so long that I don't remember a different one.

Maybe because what was so hard and so challenging just became our everyday life, our "new normal", just "what we did." 

Maybe that's part of why it's so hard without you. 

Because while taking care of you, learning, knowing, trying, always being on alert was hard mentally and physically, it is NOTHING compared to the emotional pain of being without you. 

I miss your smile, your laugh, your goofy nature. I miss your resilience. I miss your trusting spirit, the eyes that said, "This IV is so hard, but as long as you're there holding my hand, Mom, I know we'll get through it."

And now I guess I get to "get through" not having you here with me.

But somehow, I don't think you're really gone from me. I see your footprints in my life, your handprints on my heart. 

And maybe that's what I need to say at the end of this month. 

Your life mattered, it still matters. You are an influence for good in this world. 

The world is richer for you having been here, and simultaneously poorer for the loss of you.

I miss you.

I love you.

Love, 
Mama

“Sometimes, only one person is missing, and the whole world seems depopulated.”

— Alphonse de Lamartine