Birthday Wishes

Dear Harper,

My heart breaks on a daily basis. It is an ache so intense that you feel you might implode on yourself. You forget everything but the pain. I flash to your beautiful face, so perfect, so angelic. Death would have been a welcomed relief in those hours. Remembering my heart hitting the floor when I handed you back for the last time, knowing I would never see you again but also knowing it was time to let go. In that moment, actually feeling your heart shatter into a million pieces, knowing it would never be whole again.

Flash forward two years, where has the time gone? How has it been two years since I laid in the hospital knowing you were not coming home with me, not in a way that I wanted. I wonder about the what ifs and who you would be.Would you have my curly hair or would you have straight hair like your daddy? Would you have blue eyes or green? Pigtails or not? All the things I see in my dreams.So many unanswered questions about you and who you are.

I have spent the last two years learning who I am without you. Learning to live with a piece missing from heart and soul. Learning how to walk tall and call myself your mother.  Giving myself wholly and loving more freely because I wanted everyone to know your love. To know the love of a child, never wavering, always constant, and completely unconditional. I stand up tall and strong, proudly saying your name. Showing people that it is possible to move on even without healing.  I have tried my hardest and even with my foul ups I think I am succeeding.

If I had one wish for your birthday it would be to show you the world, the love that fills it just for you. I try to experience that love for you. I try to see everything with new eyes for you. Experience everything for the first time for you. I am not dwelling on your death, I am relishing in your life. The taste of the icing on a cupcake, or licking the spoon after making brownies. The joy that is your sister beating on the pots and pans with spoons. Her ripping everything out of the drawers. It is all beautiful and it has been the most magical experience to see if from the eyes .

Of course if I had my way there would be a million and one wishes that I would have for you. Showing you the world, showing you a life of joy and meaning.  Watching you race across the yard with your brother and sister. Instead, two years have flown by before my eyes...two long and heart warming yet heartbreaking years. We released balloons today, as always, with letters to you and we watched as they were snatched from the sky into the heavens by your tiny hands. A sight most beautiful.

I stand here before you, my heart never healing yet learning how to live without you in my world. Signs of your presence come often and I always say "Message received sweet Bean, loud and clear." I know you reach to touch us and show us you are okay and they always come through, received with loving and open arms and for that I thank you.

You are such a beautiful girl, showing me how to live. I want to live every day of my life to make you proud to call me Momma. Every day that passes is one day closer to us meeting again, though I want to make sure my life is rich on experiences to share with you.

I am living, breathing proof that even when things don't heal, they are bearable, become easier to deal with. My heart still aches daily for you, but it is out of want and need but I can wake up and get out of bed because I know that is what you would want and need from me. I thank God every day for the gift of life so that I can make you proud sweet angel. My hope in life is to succeed.

Happy Birthday my sweet little Harper Bean. I want nothing more than you to know my love.

I love you and I miss you.

Love always & forever,

Mommy

the gift of laughter

Dear Harper,

I cannot begin to tell you how much I miss you. There are no words to put together to write down the emptiness and sadness that fills a spot in my heart where you were supposed to be. But then again, I cannot begin to tell you how much I love you, some things just aren't meant to be put into to words. Your death was so profound that it left an ever growing love yet an ever growing sorrow in my chest.

Then there are days like today, it's so sunny and so bright. It makes my heart light and happy. These are the days I miss you most, I miss the sound of what would have been your laugh. Our house, I like to think, is one of laughter. Sure, we have our days just like anyone, when we are not so pleasant to be around, but we are pretty easy going and fun people. I didn't want to be mad over you because I love smiling and I love laughing and so I chose that. I chose to be happy that I even got to know you.

I bet you would have had a sweet little giggle, a quiet cackle. I bet you would have done things to make my sides split with fits of joy. Even though you left a gaping wound, you left us the ability to find laughter again. I watched a video of your brother from a few years ago and giggled so hard I was crying. It was a moment lost until today when I watched it for what felt like the first time, even though I had seen a thousand.

I blog for your older sister and there are days I have a hard time writing them because I am laughing so hard. She says things you just can't make up. I get to smile when your little sister splashes me in the bath tub or giggles because I sneezed funny. I can giggle at things my friends talk me in to doing, like asking all of my friends to send me a dollar for my birthday. It is a fabulous thing you have done for me.

I think I laugh more now, since you, than I did before you. You made me realize just how precious each and every one of those moments are. My house may fall down around me, and I may have laundry piled to the ceiling but I know what is important above all else because of you. You gave me a gift of almost slowing time. Even though it is not truly slowed, you made it so for me.

Never again will I take for granted your big sister climbing out of her bed for the thousandth time to give me a "huggy" or a "kissy" because those are moment cherished, laughter shared as I tuck her in again.  I am sitting here, the house is all dark save for a lamp on the desk beside me, your baby sister tucked in the swing swaying back and forth with just low breath sounds coming from her, and I am giggling as I write this. It has reminded me of all the funny things that happened over the course of a lifetime.

I am replaying moments in my head and giggling quietly. Several times in the short letter I have been doing the silent body shake as to not wake your sister. Maybe it's because my heart is light in gratefulness for you. Maybe it's because I am tired. Or maybe....

Because of you I can laugh a little longer, and save the dusting for tomorrow because we never know how many breaths we have left. You have given me the gift of laughter back, and there is no way to repay you for that.

My never ending love little bean.

I love you,

Mommy

Multiplied

Dear Harper,

My friend Keri seems to have said it best when she captioned a picture of her rainbow on facebook "The love I feel for you always seems to be multiplied by two..."

When I look at your baby sister I feel this way. I feel all the love I have for you plus the love I have for her. Looking at her makes me so thankful and then I get even more thankful that I was given you, even if only for a brief moment. 
 
I find you everywhere, in every beam of sunlight trickling into our house, in the quiet laughter of your big sister and her friends. I find you in the explosion of toys your baby sister leaves in her wake.  I find you in the sparkle of your brother's eyes. You are there and I feel love that is multiplied by two. 


I find you in the storm, you are a guiding light to get me through. I find you when things go just right, or when I am running late and need a parking space, you are always just right there as my ever loving, guiding hand. My heart swells, and often as do the tears. You are there.


I find you in the breeze as it whispers your name, I find you in the leaves rustling the same. I find you in pennies in parking lots, and I find you in the clouds in the sky. Every where I go, you are there and my love is multiplied by two. 

Even though you are not with me I find you in everything. I find you in my joy, I find you in my pain. I find you in the sun and I find you in the rain. And though you are not in my arms, I find you in my heart. 

I love you Bean.

Love,

Mommy

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there... I do not sleep.
I am the thousand winds that blow...
I am the diamond glints on snow...
I am the sunlight on ripened grain...
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you waken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of gentle birds in circling flight...
I am the soft star that shines at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry—
I am not there... I did not die...

The funny man is also the lover.

Dear Harper,

Today I feel the need to tell you about your big brother. Ah, what a lover. He wanted you from the moment that we told him we were having a baby. He wanted a sister, not a brother. He knew he could protect you from day one, or at least he felt he could.  He was so young yet so incredibly wise for his years. We told both your  brother and your sister about you very early in the pregnancy.  I had a sense of urgency in the matters that involved you. 

We told him about you when I was just 6 weeks pregnant. We showed him a picture of a baby at 6 weeks and immediately he chimed up that he was going to be a big brother again. And he said you looked like a bean on the ultrasound and so you became His Bean.  Your nickname will always be Harper Bean because of your brother. His bean.

He told all his friends at school. He talked to my belly, and rubbed my belly trying to connect with you. You knew it too, the moment I could feel you kicking and squirming which was early because I knew what I was feeling. Every time he spoke a word while I was in the same room with him you started wriggling all over the place. When you were having what I called a "quiet day" all I would have to do it call for him and he would tell you all the things he was going to teach you or he would read you a book and you would just jump like the little bean that you were. 

Your brother is wise beyond his years, what we here on Earth call an old soul. He has always known just the right thing to say at just the right time. In the days following your passing I remember his sweet baby face crawling into the bed with me and saying "It's okay Mommy, you did your very best but Harper is in heaven now and she is all better." How did he know that I needed that? He is so smart and so sweet. In the 19 months following your passing he has guided me with short bursts of wisdom like these exactly when I need them. I believe in my heart that sometimes your hand is gently guiding him to these things. He is so in tune with my soul. 

Kaden sending you a balloon on your first birthday

Your brother is a funny man too. I married your daddy because he was a funny man and I guess he passed the torch to your brother. I wish you knew him and all his crazy jokes and antics. The other day we were driving in the car to school and a song that was played at your funeral came on. (Funny thing talking about MY child's funeral, doesn't seem real or that I am at a point in life where I could lose a child.) I was tearing up but he was in the back so he couldn't see my face but he could read my body language, tightened grip on the steering wheel, head in a lower position that normal, shoulders rolled forward. See he is so intelligent in reading me. And out of the blue I hear his beautiful voice carrying to my ears, not an "I'm sorry you are sad" or "It will be okay mommy" but I hear "Just so you know, you should never play the name game with the word truck." So with a giggle on my breath and the tears subsiding I ask him why. He coolly responds with "There's a bad word in it". And I giggle some more. These are excerpts from the Kaden's Book of Knowledge and we are labeling that one #22. He knows when I am in need of a good laugh and that's why I married your daddy, he always knows when I need a laugh...the lover and the funny man. 

Your brother is an angel among us I think. His little body grieved you as hard as I did. He doesn't let a moment escape without a thought of you, what will happen to your ashes when mommy and daddy die. You never want to talk about death with your kids but for your brother and sister it was thrown in their faces. I never thought  I would have to think about who would take your ashes when I died, mostly because I never thought I would have a child's ashes to think about. But now, your brother, the funny man, has decided that he wants them when I die. I asked him if he wanted mine too and he responded with a quick "Nope, just Harper's. Your urn will probably be big and take up a lot of space". Again, the funny man. I am sure some people will read this and think how morbid it is to talk about such things but you have to find the silver lining in everything or you will just sink into a pit of dark. I found this considerably funny, given the circumstances. His random facts are my silver lining. They take me away from the grief when it is abounding. 

Your brother misses you in every inch of the world, in every cell of his body. I think sometimes he is torn in happiness in and in grief because of the birth of your sister. I tell him this is okay and he continues on. Just like mommy proudly announces that she has 4 children but only  3 got to stay with him, Kaden proudly announces that he has 3 sisters but one is in heaven. 

This world is a better place because of him. I am so proud to call him my son, and I am proud of who he is. I think you would be proud to call him brother. I just hope you are watching so you can know him more.

I love you sweet Bean.

Mommy