six years

I desperately want to blog and get everything out of my head and onto paper, but it will have to wait.

Instead, I'm going to repost last year's birthday post for Nathaniel. Not much has changed, except that this year our box of his little things is not thousands of miles away... just buried a pile of boxes of non-essential-things-that-didn't-have-to-be-opended-right-away. Hopefully I'll have the chance to pull it out this afternoon.

Wow. 

Six years.


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Another year has passed.

Another year with a hole in our family right between Liam and Simon. This hole is imperceptible to most -even those who know it exists- but, to me, it's gaping. This hole should contain a little boy whose birthday we would be celebrating today. A likely loud and crazy five year old to add to the already loud and crazy chaos that reigns here most days.

It's a Nathaniel-shaped hole.

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Because Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day is October 15th each year, and the anniversary of Nathaniel's birth and death is October 19th, the middle of this month is always rather... emotionally charged. Even if I wanted to "forget" this day was coming, it would be impossible.

Not that I want to forget. THAT would be impossible.

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Five years later, I can say that the sting of Nathaniel's death has gone out of my memories of him (hazy, dream-like images seen through the heavy fog of exhaustion and powerful anaesthetic drugs). The searing intensity of grief and loss has ebbed. The rawness is gone. The pain is still there, but it's more of an ache. A dull roar rather than a piercing scream that tears through my heart without any warning. A throbbing that lies below the surface, always present, but now covered over by the experiences and life lived over the last five years... including the addition of two life-filled little boys and the anticipation of the newest member of our family. 

But it is hard not to wonder what our life would be like with him still in it... what HE would be like.

An almost-black-haired little boy with eyes that would have likely turned some shade of brown, like Andrews. I'm sure that, like Liam and Simon, he'd love all things Lego and Star Wars and Clone Wars and Bionicles, and would gravitate towards heros like Indiana Jones and Iron Man and knights and soldiers and super heros. I know he would laugh at America's Funniest Home Videos and Garfield comics and Wipeout along with his brothers.

I wonder if he'd sit quietly and spellbound during our readings of The Hobbit or The Chronicles of Narnia like his older brother, Liam, or if he'd squirm in his bed like his two younger brothers. I wonder if he'd prefer soccer or hockey. If he'd have allergies like Simon and Andrew, or be able to eat anything like Liam. If he'd be reading on his own yet, or riding a bike without training wheels. I wonder what his personality would be like. What would be his strengths and weaknesses? What kind of brother would he be? What kind of son?

I do know that he would be loved.

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Somewhere today, that sweet boy who I will have to wait my lifetime to know is celebrating his fifth birthday with his cousin, Lachlan, and with his grandpa, my dad. He is perfect and whole and healthy and happy. He is being toasted by angels and sung to by family and friends who have passed before. He is surrounded by love and light and the glory of God. 

And he is loved.

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For those of you who are new(ish) to this blog, here is the video we played at Nathaniel's service. For those who've been reading for awhile, no obligation to watch it again. I know it's not a "fun" thing to watch. It is, however, almost all we have. The little box of mementos from the hospital -his bracelets, copies of his hand and foot prints, the comb we used to brush his hair, the tiny preemie sleeper we dressed him in- all those things are thousands of miles away in a storage facility in Ottawa. And his little grave is next to his cousin's in Regina.

And so we watch his video and experience again the wonder of his birth, the pain of his loss, and the love we will always feel for our sweet boy, Nathaniel Achaziah Bundy.