Dear Freddie,
3 months ago today, also on a Friday, that laughably named ‘Good Friday’ you were born. You should be 3 months old.
I think, now, that I never expected you. I was expecting, but I never believed you would come. And you never did. I’m never going to wonder whether to send you to school or keep you here, I’m never going to see you walk among your sisters and cousins, never find out if you were going to play rugby, do gym, or dance. Whether you’d have been a late or early reader, a good sleeper or a picky eater.
You were so much part of the family, even from those first seconds. They took you away and I followed, kicking and screaming against the people who tried to keep me back. I cried a river over you and I kept coming back for more. I loved you from the first second I saw you, never mind before I saw you. I couldn’t keep away, neither of us could. You were a little magnet, no more someone we could walk away from than any of the sisters we have known for years. We sat over you and willed you on, you drew us back to you like a little magnet. We lived through so much pain in those 11 days and we couldn’t have resented you for a moment, not a second. You were born and a whole world opened up like a bubble around you and locked us in beside you. You are as much our child, 11 days notwithstanding, as any of the others. We couldn’t stay away. You were beautiful. I don’t regret a moment of those awful, wonderful 11 days. Not a moment.
If you knew us at all, I hope you know that we wanted you to be a miracle, that we sat with our hands on your head and our fingers in your hands and hoped you’d surprise us all. I wanted you to be a miracle. I don’t think you had it in you.
I wish, more than anything, that I’d been able to see a future for you. I wish you had one, I wish that our evenings and nights were filled with ordinary baby weariness, trying to get you to sleep so we could have a few moments to ourselves. Busy days make it easier to paper over your absence, being able to be busy makes the space you fill so huge.
Today was a long day, one you would not have enjoyed. We traipsed all over town for your sisters and I thought and imagined you all day as we did so. Tomorrow you had a place reserved in the head count for the dancing show. I think we’ll all feel your absence tomorrow. I know I will.
I can’t imagine how you are managing get through these days without Freddie, every time I read another blog post I cry. Good luck for the dancing show. It’s Gods way,even though it hurts.
Sweetie, god be with you, whatever and whoever that may mean to you. Just wishing you strength, courage and fortitude (which you have) to keep on placing one foot in front of the other.
xxx
beautiful
HUGS
‘Tomorrow you had a place reserved in the head count for the dancing show.’
oh golly 🙁
it’s the ‘little’ things, huh?
xxx
Don’t trust myself to say anything even remotely appropriate as i’v’e had a bottle of wine, but just {{{{Merry}}}} and aching to give you a hug irl too. Life is so unfair.
No helpful words, just loads of (((hugs))). Thinking of you xxx
I can only imagine how you are feeling for about ten seconds before I go batsh*t crazy. This sorrow is totally unbearable, shattering. Thinking of you long into the night last night. Through your writing Freddies life and death and spirit has touched any who read of him. What a special little lad.
I think he knew Merry. I hope that Freddie felt your presence near him during those days, willing him on to surprise you, to surprise everyone. I hope my daughter knew that I was there too. That they knew how beautiful we thought they were. That they knew how much we wanted them to stay with us.
Freddie will always be your child. Be the span of his life 11 hours, 11 days, 11 years, 21 years or 81 years. Some things are immutable and fixed. A short life doesn’t preclude beauty or the experience of what it is to be truly beloved. But it is still very, very sad indeed. I wish he were here, going to the dancing show with you.
I got to your site through your comment on my guest post on sally’s site.
You remarked about your son’s funeral and I needed to understand what had happened.
I am so sorry for your loss. I have two very close friends who have lost children. One at 4 months and one at 10 years. My pain for them has been at times intolerable and it is not even me who thankfully has lost a child. I cannot imagine how you or they cope.
Today for me has for a few reasons been an emotional roller coaster, starting in the morning after reading something very emotional for me, till this afternoon when I got the news that someone my husband and sons know lost a father, 2 daughters and a niece in a small plane crash and his 13 year old son is in critical condition, and now this has broken my heart again. The pain to lose a child is something I don’t ever want to have to contemplate. With a son and a second on the way in the army, it is always on my mind.
I am sending you love and hugs. May you know no more sorrow.