I woke in the early AM hours after a crazy dream I cannot remember. As I was thinking while I couldn’t fall back to sleep, I remembered back to 5 months ago. In the early AM hours of the night on August 8th, Silas cried for about 4 minutes as if he were were in pain.

Christopher even woke, and we turned on the light to check him all over because he wasn’t calming in my arms or attempting to eat.

Then he quieted, but didn’t want to nurse, which struck me as strange, but I wondered if he had tired from crying. I thought I would wait to see if he would eat in another hour to decide if I needed to call the doctor, and he did eat when he woke the next hour.

Of course, this memory brought back the guilt of not knowing something was going so terribly wrong. I felt regret that I didn’t take him to the hospital that night. Maybe there would’ve been a chance the doctors could’ve figured out what was happening.

But, how many times have my older children done that as babies? It seemed like those “strange-normal” things babies do. How was I to know that I would leave the pediatrician’s office that afternoon without my beloved son?

How cruel to wake in the middle of the night to be taken back 5 painful months, to feel full of regret over something that cannot be changed and couldn’t have been prevented. I can’t help wishing we could have prevented his death, and I will never stop wishing that.

This morning, after Lily got on the bus, Milo and I set out to run some errands. I should NEVER go to any grocery store during the daytime on the 8th of any month, because every time I turned around, there was a mother with a baby in an infant carrier.

I couldn’t help but think, “That should be me with my baby in my cart.” But, it isn’t.

Most of the time I think it “could have” turned out differently. It is so hard to feel something “should have” been a certain way when it obviously wasn’t, otherwise it “would have” been. I can’t say that this was how life was meant to be, because no mother could ever conceive such a thought.

And yet, here I am. Life didn’t turn out in the way I intended. How do I grapple with the thought that this was how it was meant to be? I don’t.  I just accept that this is the way it is.

Because this is the way in which my life has gone, I will do my best to continue the beauty my son brought to my life.

Silas,

I don’t know how to live this life without you, but somehow, life keeps going and my heart keeps beating. So, I let it pull me forward while I am too weak, and when I am stronger, I will bravely step forward, because I am not living without you, for I carry you in my heart, and the profound love I have for you fills each beat of my heart.