Almost ten months

Dear Harper bean,

It is almost time to celebrate (to mourn?) another month's birthday that you'll miss. Double digits. Ten months since the day you were born.

I had some quiet time today, and it is during those quiet times that my thoughts often turn to you. Not that there aren't still noisier, more obvious reminders. A former colleague asking how the baby was doing. Shea asking whether we would plant "Harper's heart" in the spring - a paper heart filled with seeds sent by hospice. Thoughts about avoiding May 5th, the date of your death, when scheduling my c-section.

But it is during the quiet times that I think of YOU. As your new brother cheerfully kicks and wiggles, I remember those long, worried hours, lying on my side, begging you to make those faint reassuring movements. The days spent combing the internet, reassuring myself it would all be OK, talking to you, reassuring you it would be OK, too. The painful uphill journey of falling in love with you and the painful end-of-the-world feeling of letting you go.

There are still days when I wonder how life could possibly have moved on.

Sometimes I slip, and I think of the new baby as "bean". Such a natural name for a little one growing inside of you. But that's not something I want to take away from you, Harper bean. So much a part of your identify, in my memories.

I don't even know what I miss any more. You. Or the idea of you. All I know is that I still cry when I think about you. A lot of things still make me sad. A lot of emotions still feel out of control. Maybe it'll always be that way.

Ten months. We're coming up on the time period in which you've been gone longer than I knew you. Pregnancy plus two and a half weeks of life. Yet there are still days I can't believe it all happened.

Oh, Harper bean, as time goes on, I'm finding it harder and harder to sort through the jumble of feelings thinking about you triggers. Time is softening the edges, not always blunting the pain, but blurring the focus. So I have to squint to feel clearly.

But I can still remember what it felt like to hold you. I think I will always remember that.