What Mother’s Miss, A Journal Entry

What Mothers Miss, Living without Your Child, Child loss, Until I hold you again

I originally wrote this in March. Dreaded March. It seems appropriate today too. Your would-be 18th birthday. #18 would be 18. Even now, I cannot fathom this. I miss you so badly I don’t know where to put the pain sometimes. The list of what I am missing about you feels endless. It is endless, because my days without you are endless. Forever. 

Journal entry, March 8, 2019

I fear forgetting a single thing. I know there are details that must be slipping away as I power on without you. The futality of intentional overload and busy-ness to ease the pain of your absence.

Your days of making us memories ended when your life did. Finite. Each one more precious than words could describe. I hold them fast to my heart as if it were you I was holding, because it really is you- all that I have left of you, anyway. So I think on you. I think of our days that I thought would go on forever, for the tiniest, most ‘inconsequential’ parts of who you were, because nothing about your days here were inconsequential. You were life altering. Like your brothers, you were the most precious gift. My treasure. My life.

I miss you more than before. It doesn’t lessen. It grows and expands as your life should’ve grown and expanded. Only fools, the fortunate naive, say time will lessen the missing. How wonderful for them, they don’t understand.

WHAT MOTHERS MISS

I miss everything about you.

I miss the way you would hum and sing while you did homework, were doodling or taking a shower.

I miss the way you would come in the back door and say “Hello?” like a question. Like, “Are you there?”

I was always there. Except once.

I miss your sweet soft voice and how considerate you were with it.

I miss your laugh, that joyous sound was life to my bones.

I miss how gentle you were with delicate things, like the lego projects you loved to do or small glass ornaments. I never had to say, be careful.

I miss how you would come down the stairs so quietly on a weekend morning wrapped in your blanket and we wouldn’t hear you until you were right next to us, all sleepy and beautiful.

I miss how you would use little stumps of pencils. I wondered why you didn’t use a nice big new pencil, but you liked the little stubby ones.

I miss your sketches and doodles all over every piece of paper you could sketch on.

I miss hearing what you wanted to pray about every night and I miss praying with you. It was always for friends and family. You loved your people. Our last prayer list is still by your bed.

I miss watching those gorgeous long eye lashes close over your eyes as we prayed. You truly believed.

I miss how you would always ask where your brothers were before you went to sleep and asked me to please tell them you said good night and you loved them when they got home. You always wanted to know we were all OK and home and that you loved us.

I miss how you did the same for Dad when he was working late. Tell Dad I said good night and I love him.

I miss your sleeping angel face when I would go in to wake you for school in the morning.

I miss just looking at you sleep for a few moments before I woke you.

You were such a beautiful child.

I miss going to school and having lunch with you. You loved it when I would get a meatball sub from Giovanni’s. You loved meatball subs.

I love how you loved animals and would get upset at the humane society commercials.  I love how you decided you did not want to learn to hunt because you could not hurt an animal. I miss your kind heart and your empathy for others.

I miss the amazingly creative cards you would make for everyone’s birthday. How they would touch our hearts. You always let us know how much you loved us and added that ‘Aiden touch’ that made your cards so you.

I miss your Mothers Day Cards. I look at the last one you hand-made in 5th grade and hope to God you meant every word.

I miss how you could rattle off facts about wildlife like you had all those books we read memorized. You were a walking encyclopedia of birds, snakes, horses and other various forms of wildlife.

I miss the smell of fresh air on your clothes and the pink in your cheeks after football games in the yard, and hearing about who made what great play and who was trash-talking who.

I miss making your favorite oatmeal on a winter morning even when it was a school day, so you’d have a warm full tummy to start your day.

I miss watching you take your vitamins, one by one without complaining, ever.

I miss how you would say Thank you so muuuuch with such sincerity at every gift you ever got. You were such a grateful boy. And your excited smile…

I miss your laugh (again) and that sounds so cliché, but your laugh made everyone around you smile. And that smile….there are just no words.

I miss the way your chin would dimple a little when you smiled shy and I miss the way your eyes would crinkle when you smiled really big.

Missing my son, child loss awareness

I miss hearing you laugh and giggle and shout upstairs in the bonus room with your friends.

I miss hearing you say “I love you” every single night.

I miss your texts when you were at a sleep over, to say “good night, I love you Mom”. I would ask “Are you having fun?” and the answer was always “yeah”, but you still took time to text me goodnight.

What I would give to hear my phone beep with a text  from you just one. more. time. One more.

I miss watching you pack your back pack at the counter. I’m sorry, I have not found the strength to open it yet and I don’t know when I will. It’s one of the last things you touched.

Oh, how I miss watching you fly across that soccer field, your face so focused and intense. My GOSH you could run! You wouldn’t know this, but the high school track coach told me he wanted you for his team too.

I miss your bright green Under Armor sweatshirts and Nike shorts that you wore all the time. That color green will forever be your color and now mine.

I miss how your right foot turned in just a tad when you walked.

I miss making your birthday cakes. The really fun crazy ones like the pool cake and the snake cake. We came up with some great ones, you and I. Yesterday we shopped for your birthday celebration. It still stops me in my tracks when I think I am celebrating you and you’re gone. Gone from here.

 

   

 

 

 

I miss seeing your sweatshirt thrown over a chair and your shoes at the back door.

I miss teaching you to play the piano and working on a duet until it was perfect and how fun it was to play it together. You gave up the piano and that was OK. I loved it while we had it.

I miss hearing you practice your guitar and how peaceful you were when you did that. But you were peaceful a lot of the time.

What Mothers Miss, Utnil I Hold You Again, Child Loss, Missing Your Child

I miss hearing you say “Mom”

I miss hearing you say everything.

What I would give to hear your voice just  one more time, one more “Love you, Mom.”

I think what I miss almost more than anything is our time at night, reading and talking. It was my favorite time of the day. Just you and me and a book. I treasure those books and all the hours we spent. Shell Silverstein’s silly rhymes, your nature books of course, Norman the rescue dog….at 12, we didn’t read as much as we used to and I wish we had. I’ll never part with our books. Not ever.

I miss being your Mom. It’s all I ever wanted to be.

I know I said it, but I ache to hear you hum and sing to yourself.

I miss your smell and the perfection of your baby skin. You still had baby skin. You were still a baby. Twelve is a baby.

I miss my life when you were in it. I will never be whole again.

I miss who I used to be because of the certainty and grounding your life brought to us. Most of the time, my life and who I am are unrecognizable to me.

I miss having a whole family. It will never feel right or natural again. Your absense is painfully evident.

I miss family photos, because they aren’t really family photos when you are not in them. There is never one taken when I am not thinking of you. Can you see it behind my eyes?

I miss who we all were when you were here.

I miss the feeling of all being well because I had you all, and that made everything complete. Perfect.

I miss the feeling of true, unabashed joy. It’s just not possible anymore.

I miss believing that bad things wouldn’t happen to us.

I miss my child-like faith.

I miss my child.

I miss my boy,

my baby boy, the 5th who would be 18 now. It can’t be possible, but it is.

Aiden, until my last breath, I will miss you, my love.

Tu me manque

I Love you Pooky,

Mom.

I would love to hear all the things you miss about your child. Please comment below, it will stay private if you so wish.

For an update on Aiden’s Light Memorial Fund please click here. We are doing amazing things for kids around the world! Please like our facebook page too!

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