Happiest Birthday my sweet baby boy.

It is hard to believe one year has passed since you entered the world and left so quickly without even as much as a whisper. With no words spoken, no eye contact made, you received all that you needed and gave us some of the greatest gifts.

I could never in my wildest imagination have pictured my life being this way, walking this path and yet feeling such gratitude. Love and gratitude have carried us through. Lord knows we have been messy, we have felt the deepest level of despair one can feel, I have been on my knees calling out to you and praying to God to give me you back. Those moments were real and as I lived them I often wonder how I could possibly continue living feeling so utterly broken. Without love and without finding gratitude each and everyday I am positive that today would feel very different.

As this day approached, this significant day in our lives I have spent a lot of time reflecting on where we have come from and the path we have walked in the past year and where we are today. I remember so clearly those incredibly hard moments. I also remember the love, the love we felt, we shared and the love which was given to us from so many.

To say you are my greatest gift God could have given me is an understatement. Through you I have learned to love harder, louder, deeper, and with intention. I have learned to be a more connected Mother, and I have become a better wife. Our family has benefited from you joining us and then leaving us physically. I know with absolute certainty that your soul’s purpose was never to live here on earth with us, but to receive copious amount of unconditional love, to be held every second of your life, and to leave a legacy of loving fearlessly. I have reached a point in our journey where having this understanding gives me comfort and provides me with a sense of peace. As your Mother I have the honour of loving you and anything beyond that it isn’t up to me. We all have a soul’s journey to complete and there is no Mother powerful enough to be able to intervene with that. So I sit with you, I can feel you near always and I can love you but the rest is left up to God.

Finding peace within our journey hasn’t been easy. It was something I have been 110% committed to doing and I haven’t done it alone. This isn’t something that can be done alone. It takes a village and there is no timeline. I have been blessed with an amazing support network that combines, friends, family, acquaintances, strangers and professionals. Each one is as important as the next.

I think back to those moments of coming home after you were born, and how I was terrified to be away from your Dad. I have never in my life needed someone like I needed him. I am not sure exactly what I was afraid of but it was terrifying thinking he was going to have to go back to work, or even leave to go to the store or to run a simple errand. As the days, weeks and months move on my need for him changed, but there has been no doubt that I have needed him daily. I needed to feel him close, to feel like my heart was secure with him because it was so vulnerable and fragile and I needed him to love me loudly when things were messy and to love me softly when I was riding a wave of peace. He has been my constant, he has been my life line, and without him I am not sure this path could have been walked. Our love has been the foundation we walked on as we navigated our way through these past 12 months.

So here I am, listening to a song that often was played during our prenatal yoga classes and I feel as close to you today as I did then. 12 months later feeling you close gives me peace and comfort where it used to make me terrified the moment would end. I was terrified to allow space between us , I was terrified to stop grieving and to allow joy to stay longer, and I was scared that by finding peace, joy, and allowing space I would loose you and others would forget about you. I now know this to be not be true, I feel closer to you than ever and my moments of deep sadness are fleeting. Because my heart isn’t so heavy I can now hold you in there differently, gently, and so lovingly without desperation. You are now free from my tight grasp and you always choose to stay close and for that I am so grateful.

Today we are spreading your message on Love. We have created cards with this message on them and they will be passed out to thousands of strangers. I know with certainty your were born on this date for a reason. You could have picked any day, of any month but you chose just before Christmas at a time when we will always be surrounded by friends and family and when the world could use a reminder to Always Choose Love. My heart couldn’t be more filled with gratitude than it is, we have had so many people come forward and request these cards to help spread your message on love and to celebrate you. That is what we are doing, we are celebrating you, we are not mourning that you are gone but celebrating you because you live, because you matter, because you have changed lives, because your purpose was significant and because we love you.

So my sweet sweet boy of mine, Happy first Birthday in Heaven!!! I know you will be partying with all your friends and our family members so give everyone the biggest hug and kiss for us. I can only imagine what a party in Heaven looks like!

Loving you loudly today!
With gratitude your Biggest Fan – Mommy