**kleenex warning**
Conversations are swirling in my head, making about as much sense as they did during those 3 long days 9 years ago. A lot of words were said. Hope was tossed around. Hope was taken right back, like that “gimme five,up high, down low, too slow” game.
The thoughts in my head, they’re getting knotted up and confusing.
The knot formed by all the swirling thoughts gets tighter in my stomach as I’m remembering.
Remembering.
That’s a funny thing. I want so desperately to remember. But I want so desperately to forget.
The things I want to remember are the simple, tangible, normal moments.
The moments where we walked the track in Byron at Relay for Life, with me wearing a baby and only letting people touch his little toes. The moments where Jason grabbed the camera and snapped pictures of us while I blushed because I hate having my picture taken.
I want to remember bringing him home from the hospital on Memorial Day after he had to stay because he was jaundiced. I want to remember my friends coming to visit and oohing and aahing over him.
The moments I want to remember are the ones that are slipping away. The sounds of him sleeping, the smell of his fresh-bathed skin, the feel of his fuzzy hair. I long for those details to stay with me. But they are the ones that are slowly drifting away.
I want to forget the words that were said in the hospital, sentences that will forever be engraved in my memory. They’re the memories that tie my stomach into a double knot and force my heart into my throat because I start thinking of the enormity of it all.
I want to forget the memory of sitting with the funeral director choosing a tiny casket on the day he was supposed to be born. That day also happened to be Father’s Day.
I want to forget the sight of my strong and brave husband standing at the pulpit of the church giving a eulogy for his first-born son. I never want to forget what he said, though.
Really, I don’t want to forget those moments so much as I want for it to never have happened.
I want to trade the knot in my stomach that holds all my pain for just a little more time with my Charlie.
But I can’t.
