Baby Romeo

Oh, baby boy.

I think of you so often now. I think of you often, everyday. But now that we have another little soul to follow your own life, I think of you, my son.

This baby in my womb? Please, baby boy, please pray for him or her. Please beg the Lord, in whose arms you play and laugh, to let this baby be born alive. I already love this baby as much as I love you and your sister.

I think of you, and I am sorry. I am sorry because, very often, when I think of you my mind goes to places that are not pleasant. Most of the time, I see you, but not in the way I want to. Not in the way I wanted to remember you. And most of the time, when I think of you, I feel guilty. And I remember the insensitive things people said (still say) to me. Because I can't remember you in any tangible sense as a boy, as a snuggly infant, as a happy memory at all.

Writing this, I feel so guilty.

I remember you as a little bitty body. As a horrible whooshing sensation, as tears, as anguish, as tiny, and dead. I remember that they covered you up too fast with the burial dirt and I wanted to dig up the dirt and take you out of that box and put you back where you belonged, in my womb. And I remember realizing those thoughts racing through my mind in rewind fashion, faster than I could process or control them, and thinking to myself, "you're crazy. Stop it, crazy."

But I still feel crazy. Because in order to force these things out of my mind when I think of you, I have to put something there that never actually existed, like the image I have of you as an 18 month old toddler, with curly red hair and blue eyes like your father's. Or, I have to think of things that are real, but that I cannot see; I have to imagine you as a perfect soul in heaven adoring the Lord in His Glory and praising His name with your every little breath and motion.

It is, perhaps, part of this cross; the fact that I must wait to see you in Heaven, the Good Lord willing. That I must trust that the Lord is holding you, and holding me. That not having any good memories of you is ok. That memories are not the important part, but the gift, the giving you up, is.

It's just that I don't know if I can take any more of feeling crazy. So, baby boy, please pray. Please ask the Lord to spare me the feeling of crazy. Please ask Him to protect your little brother or sister. Please ask St. Michael the Archangel to defend me against the devil, who is desperately trying to get his hands on this baby and on your mamma.