What Should Have Been Your First Day of Kindergarten.

On your kindergarten day…

Today I watched your older sisters walk into school for the start of a new year. I could see all the kindergarteners lined up with their small backpacks and lunch boxes. Some were jittering with excitement and others held tightly to their parent’s hands. Their parents looked to be a whole mix of feelings too! Excitement for their children and perhaps nervous too as their children headed into school. Some parents had tears in their eyes as they waved goodbye.

As I watched it all - I felt a mixed up knot of conflicted feelings. This should have been your first day of school too my sweet boy. This should have been us! Since I found out you died inside me mid-pregnancy five years ago - I have had so many questions about you. As I think about how you should have been starting kindergarten - I wonder what color eyes would have looked back at me as I waved goodbye? Brown like me or blue like the rest of your family? I wonder which backpack you would have chosen? Would you have been excited or scared? Or maybe both feelings at the same time! What snacks would you have requested be in your lunch? I wonder so much about you. And that is the great grief - knowing I’ll never have the answers. I’ll only ever be able to wonder what your life would have looked like. To wonder about the funny things you would have said or mischief you would have gotten into. What questions would you ask and what would be your unique way of seeing the world? I wonder about the friends you would have made or what your favourite food would be. What would you have looked like?

There are things I do not wonder about though. Things I know for certain.

1. I love you. Not a day has gone by where you are not in my mind and heart.

2. I am grateful you are a part of our family.

3. I feel certain you are proud of us. I promised you I’d keeping living life to the fullest in your honor and I feel certain you’d be proud of the living we have done

4. You’ve made a difference! In my life and in those around us. I fully admit. This reality isn’t what we wanted. There will always be a hole in my life and heart that only you can fill. While I’ve grown stronger to carry it, the grief is so palpable and extra heavy on these milestone days.

I miss you my little boy.