Year 6

Towards the end of March every year, I start getting e-mails in my in-box that I should have canceled years ago. Fisher-Price, Gerber, One-Step Ahead, PotteryBarn Kids, and I think a couple others. All lists or sites I entered my information on when I was pregnant with Micah back in the fall of '03... and they are still sending me mommy-propaganda.

Check out these new toys perfect for six year olds! What sports does your six year old love? Has your six year old hit all the developmental markers? Are you ready for kindergarten? We have the perfect gift for your six year old!

I get a pit feeling in my stomach when I see them in my in-box. I never open them. I let them sit there for a few days and then just delete them without ever reading about what my six year old should be playing with or learning or getting ready for. I should really unsubscribe, but I just can't do it. Or maybe I don't want to.
See, I don't have a six year old. I should. I have a son that would have been six. But I don't have a six year old. I think what really keeps me from canceling these e-mails is this feeling that they are one of the few current reminders I have of what life could have been. Should have been.
I look at Lucas and can hardly believe how much he has changed in the last 4years. He is this amazing little boy with his own ideas and thoughts and feelings. And Caden, he is already such a little boy with emerging thoughts and opinions too. I have seen them grow from tiny, defenseless babes to the independent souls they are becoming. But with Micah, I missed that. I only knew him as an infant. A very sick, can't breath on his own, but otherwise perfect baby. And my memories of him are all of him this way. I can remember his piercing eyes and tight grip as Hubby and I stood by his NICU bed. I remember his golden hair that would probably have all fallen out as he got older and his chubby cheeks that might have slimmed away as he became less baby and more little boy.

Who would he be as a six year old? Who would I be as the mother of a six year old who had never known the pain of burying my first born? Would he still look like the spitten-image of his daddy? How might life be different? How might I be different?

I am beyond the acute stage of grief. I don't think about my grief everyday. If I am being totally honest, I don't even really think deeply about Micah everyday. I do see his picture everyday as I walk through my living room. But remembering him has just become part of me. Missing him has become part of me. But there are some days when the longing is overwhelming and the thoughts of what might have been just over take me.
I don't know if that is normal for this stage of grief. Probably is. Year 6. Closer to 10 than 0. I'm not sure if that means anything to you, but to me that feels big. Though I can't really explain why.

I sat in the nursery tonight, nursing and rocking Caden to sleep. He likes to hold my hand and play with my fingernails as he falls asleep. I just leaned over and rested my cheek on his forehead and closed my eyes. As dysfunctional as this may be, as I felt Caden holding my hand I tried to imagine that it was Micah and remember what it felt like for his little fingers to grasp mine six long years ago. I could picture myself there, in the NICU, sitting in a rocking chair holding my first born son. And as I rocked Caden, I just cried- tears of a deep longing for times like this with Micah that I was cheated out of and yet also tears of deep, deep gratitude for these moments that I do have with Caden and did have with Lucas.

I may not know what Micah would be good at or what toys he would like to play with or if he had hit all his developmental markers. I may be left wondering how life up to this point has changed me for the better and the worse. I may, at times, feel all alone in this world and in my grief. But, here in year 6, I do know that God is with me. He is holding me, walking with me, blessing me. He has given me Lucas and Caden and friends who deeply love me and remind me of how far I really have come in these 6 years. One of my dearest friends told me today that it is the times when I worry about losing my hope that prove that I really haven't lost it. That rings so true in my heart. I am sad, heart-broken, incomplete. But that is not the whole picture, thank you Jesus. I will be made whole one glorious day but I can still see the amazing ways I am a blessed woman now on earth. I do feel lonely and like I haven't navigated this grief well at times, but I just keep praying that God would help me reconcile this woman that I am with the idea I have of who I should be.

Year 6. Still longing. Still hurting. Still wondering about so many things. But yet, grateful and hopeful and learning how to be comfortable just being me.


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