Nicole: To my boy on his birthday

My lovely boy.  So today is your birthday.  It’s been a year since you came silently into the world, a year since I last saw your face.  The last year has been the worst of my life.  Learning to live without you has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, and I feel the lack of you in everything I do.  You were with me for such a short time, but the impact of your brief life on mine has been huge. It’s left a crater in my heart, and an impression on my soul bigger than I could ever have imagined.  Yesterday it was a year since we lost you, and it was particularly hard – I miss you so much.  But I’ve talked a lot about my grief, so today, on your birthday, I want to talk about what you’ve brought me.  On a day I should be giving you gifts, I want to thank you for what you’ve given me.  
  

You have taught me so much.  I have changed in so many ways, yet in others losing you has restored me to who I really am.  You returned my natural optimism - gave me hope when I had started to think I’d never feel hope again.  You made me realise that giving up, out of fatigue and out of fear, is not an option for me.  You made me see the good in people – the overwhelming good in humanity as a whole, when time and experience had started to make me cynical.  Because of you I have found my voice again.  I used to write all the time, but I had stopped.  Writing to you, and about you, makes me feel like myself again. 

Through you I’ve met some of the most amazing women I’ve ever had the fortune of knowing.  We have been brought together by our loss, and united by our thoughts, feelings and care for one another. I’ve been able to get and give support like never before in my life.  I wouldn’t have met them, wouldn’t have been there, if it weren’t for you.

Our Year of New Things, which we’re doing in your name, has shown me that there are amazing experiences to be had, if you let yourself try things.  That it’s not worth putting things off – for when’s a better time to enjoy things than now?  We are inviting people to join in this week, and I love the thought that people will experience something new, all because you existed. 

You have confirmed the love that your dad and I have for one another.  We never doubted it, but losing a child can break a couple.  Not us.  We are more together than we ever were, if that’s possible.  You’ve also made me realise how important my lovely family and wonderful friends are – for what matters in life if not them?  People might think that losing a child would make you scared to love, to open your heart.  But I know the hard way that love is worth the risk of loss.  The grief doesn’t cancel out my love for you – I only feel so much grief because I feel so much love.  And I wouldn’t change having you for the world.     

I read somewhere that perhaps people get the time they need to achieve something  in this life.  Looking at the impact you had, the effect you’ve had on me, on your dad, people who know us and even people we've never met, perhaps those 9 months in my tummy were all you needed.  That your life was short, but perfect and complete.  
 
Of course, I miss you more than I can express, especially today on your birthday.  I wish we had presents, and spoiling you, and fun.  This day each year will always be your day, but it won’t be the only day that you exist for me, that I remember you.  Every day you will be in my thoughts, every day I will wish you were with me.  I struggle with not being able to hold you, to care for you.  I have all this love for you that I can’t do anything with.  So I will send it out into the universe, in the hope it finds you.  Can you feel it?  Does it reach you?  Happy birthday sweetheart, and thank you  xxx