August

Oh, I miss my boy so much. I miss his smell, the dear and kind expression of his face, the back of his head, my son, my first child.

The one that made me know the hugeness of endless love, that opened my heart so big.

I miss my child. You see, he wasn't just A child, it was not a matter of getting pregnant again and having another one and making everything better that way. He was Otto. Singular. A person all his own, and my boy. He grew and moved in my belly, I loved being pregnant and holding his life. I loved that amazing closeness, that constant hug and love, the honor of being a mama.

I loved seeing him in the ICU, tape and cords everywhere, I loved looking in on him in the middle of the night and seeing his nose, and seeing his hands and feet and touching him and knowing he was mine, this beautiful boy I could never have imagined. How big he was, how strong and tall, I knew he would be a beautiful man one day.

I miss HIM.

So darling friends, I want to tell you something. Something that will be interesting to you because it doesn't come naturally. When I am sad about Otto, and missing him, I only need you to miss him with me, or to hear me missing him. I don't want you to make it better.

I don't want you to remind me that I have Luna now because I know, Luna is the light in my days and my laugh and my amazement. I need to talk about just Otto sometimes.

I need him to have a place of honor, a place of his own, and I need to feel the pain of missing him. Especially this month. This is my month with him, the one where I want to sit in a dark room and cry and talk to him. The one where I remember the saddest of days, the one where I remember the bliss of holding him for the first time, of loving him so much, of getting to rock him to sleep. Of changing his diaper. Of kissing him. I need to feel all of this, and it naturally comes to the surface this month. It is an intimate and hard and amazing thing. It is mine and I need to have it. And sometimes I need it to be witnessed and seen. And it will hurt for you too. Hurt is just part of joy. The other part.

I feel so much love from my friends this month, from people I hardly know, that remember that August is his month. This means so much to me. He is such a part of our family.

Today Luna got out a photo album of her brother, closed the cabinet, threw the album on the couch, climbed up onto the couch, and looked through it, naming all the people in the pictures. "Mommy, Daddy, Otto," making sweet, soft sounds of her own words too, and when she was done, she got down and put it back in the cabinet. She doesn't normally put things away. She knows this is special. She has a sweet love for this baby Otto that her Mommy and Daddy loves so much in the pictures. Sometimes she kisses his picture. She calls him budder. (brother.) What a darling girl. He is part of our family, I feel him here so much, he is mostly in my heart, and he loves Luna, and Luna loves him, and we will find our way through this family shape.

I am grateful for my son. I am so grateful to be his mama. I would rather have this pain than not have him at all, because he is mine and I am his and it will never be broken.