As I sat there staring at my son’s name on his grave, I knew life would never be the same. I felt myself change that day, and then more every day there after.
“How could this possibly be happening?” I asked myself with my head sinking into my
hands.
It almost felt like I was in a dazed dream – a nightmare, and I would wake up any moment with relief that it wasn’t real at all. Except that it was.
As I ran my hands on my baby’s engraved name and kissed him goodbye, I began my journey back home. How I would go on living a life without Milo in it was incomprehensible, but I knew I had no choice.
I got home to my dim lit room, asked my husband to give me the space that I needed and proceeded to cry myself to sleep. All I had left to hold was a teddy bear with Milo’s name on it, given to us as a gift. Never would my arms hold Milo’s little head and tiny hands. Never would I be able to caress him and hold him close for comfort. That bear hurt my heart every time I saw it, yet also provided just enough comfort.
A few days after the burial, I was looking for distractions and began involving myself in projects and work. I noticed I had received an email and my inbox had 1 unread message from someone I did not recognize. As I cautiously opened it, thinking it may be spam mail, my heart suddenly sank.
“Oh, my god. I can’t believe this!” I exclaimed, with my hand over my mouth.
“What is it?” My husband said.
As I began to read my husband the email out loud, my eyes filled with tears. It was an email from the daughter of the man who was buried next to Milo - who shall remain unnamed for privacy reasons. She explained in her email that she was at the cemetery earlier that day, and couldn't help notice her dad’s neighbor was just a day old.
She proceeded to explain how her heart hurt for us having to lose a baby so young, and that she thought of us the whole ride home. She explained that when she got home, she decided to look up Milo’s name, and little and behold, found this blog. That’s when she decided she needed to reach out to me and send us her sympathies.
Since then, we’ve exchanged pictures of our dearly departed and shared our stories of them. It brought me comfort knowing that a complete stranger was touched by our story and took a chance at contacting me.
That night I went to bed realizing that we are not the only one’s living with hardships and tragic losses caused by unfortunate events. For me, the reality is most of those days will be filled with tears, and moments of yearning to be a mother for a baby I can watch grow. We all have our own journeys and our own stories to tell. Milo chose us to be his parents, and this is our story.
Comments