How did we get to 15? It feels like yesterday I was driving home from lunch with your Dad on September 16th in 2008 waiting for labour to start. Waiting for the moment to meet you, my first child. I will always hold you in that moment in time when you were born on your due date and it felt like no other babies were born that day. Confidence soaring after you were born and I told your Dad to go home and sleep because you and I would be just fine. Almost impossible to get him to agree since he was drawn right in the moment he looked into your beautiful brown eyes. You were his girl and everyone knew it. I said I would protect you forever and that my job would be to make sure you would be ok in this world when I am gone one day. I failed at that not by choice but by genetics and I live with that everyday. SMA, I hate those letters but they never overshone the still evolving love and connection that we have with you. You are 15 and instead of thinking of all of the things that you have missed as I keep those little chapters unopened in my heart everyday, I must think about all of the people you have helped. People tell me when they are going through something really hard they think of you and feel stronger. This does not bring you back to me but it helps me to know that you live on in the good and the hope in others.
I picture Isla and Callum reading your blog one day and hopefully getting to know you even better. They talk about you with such ease and they miss you so much yet they never physically met you. This tells me kids need to be exposed to grief in its full journey because grief is love. They are 9 and 12 now and I am in awe of them and feel so lucky to get to know them as they grow up. As I marvel at them it aches to think what you would have done here on this earth. This morning we will head to our usual place to buy your fall planters, flowers for your vase and decorations for your spot at Glen Oaks. We will sing you happy birthday and say hello to the other babies in the Garden of Angels. Dad takes a walk at the cemetery and I need space to sit on your bench in front of your stone just you and I. This is our day the day you were born where I remember feeling sadness that you would no longer be safe within me and so elated to meet you.Tears are notes from the heart and as I sit here in our living room this morning writing this I see sunbeams hitting your picture and cry with both love and grief. Please don’t think this grief takes away from our love. My heart could burst with how much my love for you overflows.
My grief carries me now as much as I carry it. We know each other well. Instead of wishing grief would leave I have made a room for grief that is filled with all of the things I love and all of the comforts needed to catch me when fall. I invite others into that room who need comfort in their grief journey as a rest stop and when they leave they take a piece of you with them. I like to think that there are pieces of you in every human you have helped over the years like seeds growing and making this world better. You put people at ease and awe Emersyn and you inspire them to keep going and take care of others who need it most along the way.
Happy 15th birthday to my first born beautiful child Emersyn Paige. You lived and you live on in your family who will always carry your legacy and recognize the gifts you send at just the right time when we need it most.
With deepest love and gratitude,
Mom xoxo
