Well this year wasn't any easier for me than any other year. I don't know if it was any harder...but it certainly wasn't easier. A week and a half later I can't tell you much about what we did. hmm.
I had fall break over that weekend. Thursday hung out with my Jakers, Friday hung out with a couple great friends...Saturday & Sunday are a blur...and Monday I decided I had to make a cake. Jake wasn't feeling well so he hung out on the couch watching back to back PBS with his cup of juice. I've cut back on the baking since June and hadn't had butter in the house for months. I bought some for sugar cookies, which I had made in the weeks leading up to Sammy's birthday, and had enough left over for chocolate buttercream frosting. This cake made up for all the baking I hadn't been doing since June.
We tried to look at the pictures from his birth. But so much has come to light about what life really was as opposed to what I thought it was at that time...that I just look at the pictures and think about all the Ick that came out in 2011.
These last three years have been long. 2012 was a break compared to 2010-2011 and 2013 has had plenty of challenges. I'm just tired. And "celebrating" or not? the birth and death of my first child was once again more than I could fathom. I mean, I'm living it and it still seems unimaginable. I don't know how else to explain it.
I don't really think much about the what if's of having a 3 year old. I had a baby that didn't live. He will always be my baby. He wasn't my 3 year old. But he was my baby. And yet I can't help but occasionally miss him.
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For the last 2 years I have started to plan something fun to do in honor of Sammy on his birthday. But when it comes down to it, I get too sad, too distracted trying to not look sad, and too absent minded to commit to anything. Some kind of pressure releases after October 7th and I can get back to my "normal" sad self.
Isabel was looking at pictures on my mom's phone and found the ones of Sammy. We started talking about how his birthday had just passed and she mentioned that he needed candles to celebrate.
Isabel: looking at a picture of Sammy lying in my lap "Did you drive there?"
Me: confused "uh, yes, we drove there."
Isabel: "Is there a door there?"
Me: still confused, realizing she thinks we can just go visit him...
My mom pops into the conversation as the tears stream down my face: "yes, there is a door, and Sammy is there and some day he'll get to walk around and show us all that he's learned."
Isabel: "No Nana, he can't walk, he's just a baby, babies don't walk."
Oh Sammy. You never lived outside my body but you are surely living inside our hearts and our minds. I really hope to hold it together some year and honor you on your day. But this was not that year.
