You

This weekend I think of you.  I probably will for the rest of my life. 

Saint Patrick's Day will always be a reminder.  The week after Maddie's birthday.  Seven days after we celebrate the birth of our first born and are supposed to be out eating a traditional Irish meal and drinking green beer, I'll be quietly remembering.

Some years will be more painful than others.  This year is one of those years.  More so than last year.  Last year I was pregnant with Harper.  Anticipating and looking forward to her birth.  This year I'm not and I find myself a bit more nostalgic.  Sometimes a bit sad. 

I shed a few tears for you this weekend my love.  I sat in the still of the morning when the rest of the family was still sleeping and I closed my eyes and imagined.  You would be eighteen months old.  Beginning to talk more, walking everywhere and oh so curious about the world around you. 

This year, I realize more than ever that you could legitimately exist in our family unit.  Maddie, just turned 5.  You, 18 months and Harper, 7 months.  It would mean I would have been pregnant two short months after giving birth to you. Something that in the past I may have scoffed at and openly wondered how to handle.  But something that now, I'll hopefully never do.  Life is too precious.  No matter when it occurs.  It's such a sweet gift.

I wish we would have named you.  But, at the same time, I feel as if we can't.  I wish we knew whether you were a boy or a girl.  I wonder if your eyes would have been blue like both of your sisters'.  I wonder all these things and many more...

You help me to appreciate life.  Even when it's difficult.  Because life, no matter how messy or hard, is still life and that is such a gift.

I'm quite confident that someday I'll meet you.  That makes me happy.  Until then, on this weekend each year, I'll remember.  I'll stop.  I'll appreciate.  For this is the weekend we lost you... before we even met you.  And to some, that makes the loss easier, or less, but in so many ways, it makes me miss you even more.