School has started again. Once again, I'm rushing here and there and everywhere. I find myself pressed for time every single day. Sometimes I wonder how I did it with you here. Maybe that's the part of being a mom that no one really tells you about. The part where no matter what kind of day you have or how many things you have to do, you can always find time for your child. I remember that when we were together, time didn't exist. It was simply you and I. It was perfection. I've found comfort in these past months to be able to go sit at your spot, just to be with you; to know that only a wall separates us. It's exactly where I should be. With you.
I was waiting for school to start because I needed my mind to be busy. I needed to be able to think of anything else. Of anything that didn't remind me of how much I miss you. The truth is, it's impossible. I miss you. I find my mind wandering back to all of it. From the start to the end. It just keeps replaying over and over. I haven't been able to go visit you every day, and it's made things that much harder. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep it up forever. I knew that someday I'd have to stop going daily, but I almost feel like it's the least I could do. If you were still here nothing in the world would keep me from you.
The holidays were hard. Harder than I could've ever imagined. Your absence was just so prominent. It was as if everything was there to remind me of what I was missing. Every little girl I came across seemed to be 13 months. All their moms were glowing. And I, well, I was dying a little more inside each time. Remember our neighbors from the hospital? I found myself looking at her mom's facebook all the time, and I felt jealous. Yes, Bella, jealous. I feel guilty even admitting that. I'm happy for them. They seem to be doing so well. She's growing, and she looks so much stronger. I just often find myself wondering how things would've been for us. There is no comparison, I know. It's just that sometimes my mind gets the best of me, and it just doesn't know how to understand. My heart gets in on the action too, and it simply doesn't know how to stop loving you so much that it hurts. Her mom is young like me. Her daughter was sick, sicker than you. And they get to be together. I guess what I'd really like to know is, why not us? It's a dumb thing to even feel this way, but sometimes, I just can't help it. I miss you, and there is no reason in the world that will make that go away.
I took your bassinet out. That was hard. You never even slept in it because I always needed to have you next to me. Maybe a few times you'd start out there, and then I'd bring you right back to my bed. I needed to hear your steady breathing. I needed to know that it was still you and I. I wish that I could just bring you home and have you be the first thing I see in the morning.
I dream of you sometimes, and there hasn't been a time when you didn't look happy. I hold on to that. I am convinced that wherever you are, you are no longer suffering. It's the only thing that keeps me going. It's the only thing that will allow me to get up out of bed each morning. I love you Bella. I love you more than you could possibly imgaine.
I love that you write to Bella. <3 I think it's one of the smartest, sweetest, most beautiful ways to cope with missing her. You are so honest in your feelings and yet so hopeful in your tone - hopeful for something that you don't even know or understand, maybe - hopeful for an easier day, hopeful for more memories of her, hopeful she is just as happy and whole as you visualize she is (and I know she is!), hopeful just being together again someday. And it's not in the leas "dumb" for you to feel envious or confused even at why some babies get well and some don't. It's the same as the mother's who wonder why some people can have children, and they can't - or why some pre-term babies survive and some don't - or why some children are cured of cancer and some aren't. It's so so hard - impossible really - to reconcile that in our minds. I know I certainly do not know the "why's" of this life. I really don't. There are a great many "why's" that I face day-to-day. But through the encouragement of others, the purposeful-faith God has evoked in my heart, and the perspective that comes with dealing with trials - I try not to focus on the "why's" so much that I overlook the answers I do know. The reasons I love my little boy. The blessings I've been given just by knowing him and being his mommy for these past 2 1/2 years. I don't know what tomorrow brings - or how long I will have today's joys - but I do know that no matter what...I will always have what we've shared together thus far. And you are part of the reason I have chosen to cherish and realize how precious each day is. It's not about how much time we have - it's about what we do with that time. This earthly life can be wonderful and cruel - but it's not forever either way. And that brings me sadness...followed by wonderful hope and gratitude that at the end of this life...there is a better, eternal, perfect life waiting for me, and my Jet....and you and your Bella. I cannot wait to meet her someday. <3 Love to you, sweet momma. xoxo.
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