Embrace the void

Gang of Four 

~ Allyson Williams ~ Leave a comment

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My littlest baby Theo,

Summer is in full swing. This weekend the sun was shining strong, your brothers were spending the days running in a sprinkler, playing soccer, and being super silly and free spirited boys. Your Dad competed in a charity dance competition on Friday night and won first place. I know you were right there beside him during the whole performance. Would you have been a good dancer? Your brothers love to dance and anytime the music is turned on they are grooving! Your Uncle Terry was here all weekend. He would have loved you dearly. We spent some time watching super bike races this afternoon. All four boys loved them, I am sure you too would have been crazy for the speed and power.

I felt your absence every minute of this incredible weekend. It seems so unfair for us to be together making so many memories and you are left to watch from a distance. Do you feel like it is unfair? Do you watch us with a heavy heart wishing as hard as I do it was so different? Do you want to be rolling on the grass with your brothers? Do you want to be a part of the love attacks your brothers get into? Do you feel their love even though it is at a distance?

You sure picked a great Dad. I have been thinking how right you were to pick him. His love for you runs deep. You are forever on his mind. I watch him with Jack and Patrick and think of all the ways you four would have fit perfectly together. The adventures you would have taken with him and the memories you would have made. I wonder how similar you would have been to him. Would you have love the tourism industry? Would have had the love for The Bay of Quinte Region? Would you have volunteered your time in similar ways? Would you have valued simple days with the family? Would have played the piano? Would you have shared his faith in God? Would you have been as thoughtful and as caring as he is? Would you one day be a Dad just like him? When it comes to Dads it doesn’t get better than him. I am so sorry you both can’t share it all.

This experience of losing you comes with so many layers. My heart breaks for me, as your Mom who desperately wants you back in my life. My heart breaks for Jack and Patrick, as they forever lost a brother who they would have adored and would have shared a life so close and so filled with love. My heart breaks for your Dad who lost you, his third son. It was meant to be a gang of four sharing all father and son experiences. My heart breaks for all of your Grandparents who also feel your absence and feel sadness for their children who are heavy with grief. The layers are thick, they are heavy and they are real. These layers are there because you are loved by so many and so very deeply.

I love you, I miss you, I feel you.

Your forever loving Mommy

Anger Simply Doesn’t Serve Me.

~ Allyson Williams ~ Leave a comment

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Theodore,

Today, I am choosing to see the gifts. I am choosing to love you, honour you but not be swallowed up in grief. There are times when this is easy. Today it isn’t easy but that is where I want to be so it is where I will sit, you deserve it and so do I.

I am not angry. I am not angry at you, at God or at anyone else. I have read so many blogs about how grieving parents feel or telling others how to act with a person who is on the journey of losing a child. Most of them don’t feel true to me, even though it is for many. I am not angry at the Mom who pops out babies like it is no big deal, I am not angry at the genuine person who unintentionally says something to me that cuts deep, I am not angry at stranger who has no clue what our path looks like and makes assumptions that sting, or at the person who wants to point out all that I am blessed with instead of acknowledging our loss as a profoundly painful loss, and I am certainly not angry at those who love us yet have no clue how to support us or have figured maybe we are over it or will be shortly (ps we won’t be, like ever). You see Theodore, our journey and my journey of becoming a Mom tells me that most people are good, most people put love first, and being angry doesn’t serve any one. We have no clue what others’ paths look like, we too can make assumptions but what would that serve? We all have challenges, I am happy for the Mom who never struggled with making a family, she probably deserved that break because in life her heart will have to tend to other challenges.

Not being angry is one of the many gifts you gave me. My heart longs for you in unimaginable ways. My heart doesn’t want to allow anger to take up space where love and compassion belong.

Today, I am going to be that person who points out all the blessings even if it is annoying to myself. I have learned a new depth to love, deepened compassion for others, empathy for people’s situation I don’t understand, a desire to be a better version of me, to choose love even when it is hard and especially to those who are acting in unloveable ways, to find gratitude for all the simple blessings, to celebrate everything big and small, to see that in tragedy there are beautiful moments, memories and gifts that should be seen and appreciated, and acknowledging the gratitude for all that we have been given in these circumstances doesn’t mean I am happy this all happened. I am incredibly grateful for God as I know he weeps with me when my heart is overflowing with grief, I am never alone in my loneliest moments as he always walks beside me in this journey.

Theodore, your lessons, and your gifts are abundant and I am grateful for it all. I love you. I miss you like I have never missed anyone before, but today I am celebrating you even though it doesn’t feel easy.

Your forever loving and grateful Mommy.

I see you. 🐘

~ Allyson Williams ~ Leave a comment


Theo my love,

My memory of you is so vivid, the weight of you laying on my chest, your birth, your perfect toes and your adorable nose. It was all so beautiful yet so fleeting and so permanently etched in my memory.

Saying I miss you is beyond an understatement. I have written you only a million love notes lately even though they have never been written down. Life is so busy, I feel like I haven’t had time alone to pour my love into you. I have been writing to you in the shower, while I drive, as cook dinner and any moment my mind is free to wonder back towards you. Do you hear them? Can you feel my heart yearning for you? Do you see me seeing you everywhere? Do you hear my private cries and the prayers I pray for us to meet again?

The permanency of our situation is starting to feel so heavy. I cry out for you to be given back, it is so selfish as I believe you had higher work to do but I want you. I want you in my arms, I want my lips to kiss those cheeks again, I want to see your eyes I never got to lay mine on. I simply want so much and it is something no one can ever grant me. There are no prayers loud enough, or powerful enough to return you to me.

I will carry you with me through life, I will see it all, all I wanted to experience with you. Your first birthday and all the other ones to follow, your first day at school and your last, your first girlfriend or maybe a boyfriend (I don’t judge and would love you either way) and then the day you got married and started a family should that have been something you would have desired. These are all the big moments for us, but I will see you in all the simply pleasures in life as well, rolling down a hill, riding a bike, running in circles and falling down dizzy, going to a fair, petting an animal, smelling a flower, catching snow on your tongue, your first swim in the ocean, you loving others. . . There is no time I won’t see you, it is impossible. As time rolls on what I see will change but seeing you won’t.

I put my heart into your hands. I trust this journey. It just isn’t easy nor will it ever truly be. How can it when the most precious part of me died? Your spirit and your purpose lives on and with that comfort comes to my heart. I am not sure how to stop wishing with my whole being for this to be so different? How to do accept the blessings and accept none of this can be undone? How do I love without the pain?

I love you, I see you, and I miss you in everything I do.

Your forever loving Mommy

Embrace the Void

~ Allyson Williams ~ Leave a comment

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Theodore my sweet little boy,

This past week has been so busy. I feel like it has been an incredibly long time since I have written to you, yet I speak to you all the time and you are forever on my mind.

We had Easter last weekend, your first Easter and our first Easter with you in our hearts. The day was beautiful. It was warm and sunny. I could feel you near. It wasn’t a heavy feeling but rather it was warm and comforting.

Your brother was born on Easter Sunday 3 years ago. This year was such a different day for me. I spent time reflecting on the day Jack was born. He was a gift that your Dad and I were and are forever grateful for. I love remembering the day he was born. My labour was days long and he was born by c-section. The minute my eyes made contact with his was a moment I will never forget. My heart grew in a way I didn’t know it could. I had no idea that in an instant you could be forever changed and in such a positive way.

As the kids ran around the yard looking for eggs, my arms felt empty. I should have been holding you in a carrier or a ring sling while recording the kids with my phone. The video should have had your little noises in the background or showed a glimpse of you, had you been sleeping. But it didn’t. I feel the void, I see you missing from our life. I will always see you missing from our physical world.

Jack turned 3 on Thursday. He came home from preschool to presents waiting to be opened. He was so excited and so appreciative. “Wow thank you Mommy! This is awesome” he exclaimed. Patrick was equally excited as his brother opened gifts from family and friends.

Yesterday we celebrated Jack with our friends and all the little people in our life. It was a beautiful relaxed day. Yet again you weren’t there. At one moment I stopped, looked around the room, listening to the children playing and thought about you, thought how much you would have loved to have a party for you one day, how you would have been such great a friend to all these children and how much you are missed. The void that has been created touches every aspect of our life. It is impossible to simply enjoy the beautiful moments of life without feeling you missing.

I watch your brother Patrick and how gentle and loving he is with little babies. As I watch I see what an amazing big brother he would have been. It breaks my heart knowing he will never be one.

The void is vast. It can’t be filled. The beauty in the void means you matter, you lived, you are loved and will be forever remembered. As much as the void hurts I wouldn’t have it any other way. You are my forever son, my love for you will never cease to exist.

Your forever loving Mommy

 

Mid party break