Happy Birthday, Baby

Precious Baby,

This is not the letter that I thought I would be writing a year ago. Oh how I miss everything about you- your sweet smiles, your hilarious laughs, your high-pitched talks and hungry cry.  I miss your perfect little thighs with hardly a chunk on them.  Your tiny toes that we used to make Valentine's Day cards.

I hope they are taking care of you in Heaven.  If I thought for a minute that they weren't I would just hop on the next bus up there.  I'm so sorry that I'm not there to rock you or tuck you in at night.  Do they know that you sleep in a sleep sack?  A cotton one in the summer, but now it's gotten cold so hopefully they have switched to your fleece ones.  Surely they know that, right?

I hope one of the many mommies and daddies have made you a cake.  And they hopefully made a tiny smash cake for you.  Oh how I wish I could see you smash that cake!  I remember at your friend Chloe's birthday party I let you try a little bit of cupcake even though you were only 7 months old and I shouldn't have.  You loved trying that frosting!  If I had only known what was coming I would have let you eat the whole thing. 

I wonder if you are walking now- or in Heaven were you already able to walk when you got there?  You were so mobile.  And always so ahead of your milestones.  I thought surely you would have been walking well before you turned a year old.  We used to "walk" around the house all the time.  With you holding my hands, and me standing above you.  You thought it was so much fun to be able to get all the way down the hall to your bedroom.  So fast you were!

I haven't moved your toys.  Your room is exactly the way you left it.  I just keep hoping that maybe one day I'll wake up and you'll just be here again and everything will go back to normal.  There's still so many clothes in bigger sizes that would fit you now.  It's all here, and the only thing missing is you.

I'm surprised every morning when I wake up.  I always think that surely my heart has broken so much that God decided to take me in the middle of the night to be with you.

I miss you so much James. I can't believe that we aren't spending your birthday together.  The first of what was supposed to be a lifetime of birthdays.  I went today to order you some balloons- One big Happy First Birthday Balloon and 8 small balloons for the 8 month birthdays we got.  I don't know what else to do.  It seems silly to get you a cake.  I guess I'm hoping that the balloons will fly high enough tomorrow that they will somehow reach you.

I hope your angel baby friends have fun at your party.  I've met so many of their mommies that are still here.  We all miss you so very much.

Happy Birthday, sweet baby.  A year ago, my life changed in the most remarkable way. I got to meet my favorite person!  And for better or for worse, I am so thankful that I got to be your Mommy.  You are worth every hour of labor, every stitch across my stomach.  You are worth every tear, every smile, every cry.  Even if you had never so much breathed one breath on this Earth, you would have been worth it.  And the fact that I got you for 8 and a half months?  Never has anyone been so lucky as I.

I miss you.  I love you.  I can't wait to see you again.  And the next time we see each other, we'll never have to be a part again.  Happy Birthday, love of my life.