My Beautiful Little Boy

My friend had a baby last night here at Kaiser. A brand new little being, so sweet, so full of spirit, I still feel glowing from holding him.

And it makes me long for Otto. It's their first baby, a boy, and seeing them holding him and taking him in, and realizing, they get to keep him, they get to keep getting to know him. And I want that still, with Otto, I want to go back and make it all right, make it all come out the way it was supposed to. I miss you, my little boy. I look at all your pictures, your sweet fat belly, your arms and legs, your cheeks and I want to kiss them. I want to kiss them over and over like I get to do with baby Luna.

She smells so good, and I am so amazed at all the love I get back from her, the sweet looks up, the smiles, the wet kisses on my cheeks, the jokes. It makes me so happy and it makes me know all the more what I've missed with you, what I am missing. It is odd to think you were only here, outside the belly for a week. Our relationship to you seems timeless, ongoing, here and now. You are not something that happened and that we got over, you are alive now, to us.

I ache for those moments of laying in bed, with my first baby, examining him, in wonder of him, all being well. I still can't believe it. I still can't believe that he came and went, I still have a part of me that thinks I can DO something about it, a deep, unconscious little person that still wants to act to save him. It goes against every cell in a mama's body to let her baby die, to let him go, to let him fade and go on without you. When you love this being in a way you've never loved before. And I still love him that way, but without him here to smile back.