Today is the day.

I have been having a really rough time during the lead up to today. I am not sure why this year has been so different. Maybe because 10 years is a decade, a milestone for a child reaching this age or maybe because his memory is slipping further and further away?
I have thought longer and harder about the days leading up to his birth, the actual birth, the 78 minutes of his life and then his death. The hours with him afterwards as he lay in my arms. The pain etched all over my darling husband's eyes as his life ebbed away and a part of him went too. The courage that TJ showed at only 7 as he held him ever so gently in his arms, the wonderment in his eyes for the brother he had lost.
I woke early this morning at 2:24, exactly 10 years and 2 minutes after I had gone into labour. I spent most of the morning awake from then but drifted off sometime around 4 when I was thinking that this was the time I was driving to the hospital and smelling the orange blossoms on the side of the road as the gentle breezes came through the window.
How ironic that I woke again at 5:42am, the exact time of his birth. I put my hands to my belly, I was in a trance but then quickly realised he wasn't there, nor was he in my arms and he would never be at my breast.

I drifted off again, tired, teary and agitated.

To my darling boy, not a day goes by without you on my mind, I can still smell you, I can see you and I feel you close all the time. Your death shook my world to the very core but I know that it was something for me to learn from. You taught me so many things, you enriched my experience of motherhood in so many ways, you taught me compassion, the strength of family and the power of undying love.
I blame myself for so many things and I am trying ever so hard to let that go, you were just not to be part of this world walking beside me but to watch over me instead. I thank you for sending me Lachlan, the boy that saved my soul and I know that you have been together before and that is why he feels such an unconditional bond with you. I know that we will one day be together, that there will be a time in another life that I will get to hold you close, to cradle you in my arms, feel the soft down covering your hair but until that time my darling boy, I will forever hold you close in my heart instead. Go gently my sweet. xx