I've been a horrible blogger these past 8 months. I've been thinking of all of you. I find myself driving, thinking, feeling and planning to write a post. Then, chaos, delicious chaos comes knocking on my door.
We are all here. Healthy. Thank God for that. Lauren is growing so quickly, she's not my tiny little baby girl. Jason is still in love with her. They are growing so fast.
But, then it hits me. 22 months. That's how old my Ethan would've been right now. I try to imagine my life with him and Jason and Lauren. Yes, I think, it would've been fine and we would've managed just fine. I miss him terribly. Every fiber of my being misses him. It's hard to breathe sometimes. It comes out of nowhere. Feels like I've been hit by a truck. I try to fight it, but I can't. The tears come rolling down my face. I miss him so much and I realize that as long as I'm living I will continue to miss him. Sometimes I feel like the more time that passes the more my longing for him increases.
For a long time, I avoided the baby aisles at the stores. Looked away from anything "baby", then I was blessed and was pregnant with Lauren. I still couldn't fathom anything "baby", in fear of testing fate. But, she lives and we are all over the baby aisles at Target, Kohl.s, etc. I pinch myself, really. It has happened for us again. We have a live baby, and then my eyes look over onto the boy clothes, toys, etc. And I wonder, I wonder how Ethan would look in a certain outfit, if he would've enjoyed playing with this or that. I'm in baby land, loving it and longing for Ethan. I miss him, I want to scream, I want to cry out but most of all I want to hold him in my arms.
He would've been 2 years old this year. 2 years old. I can't believe it, I was pregnant and my baby died. Sometimes, I hear myself telling his story and can't believe we survived it. We have emerged as different human beings. Better human beings. Yes, Ethan made us better. That's how I see his short life and death. But, dammit it hurts just as much as did the first day. Even more sometimes, now that the shock has worn off and we feel his absence.
