Dear Abram

Nov 27, 2019

Dear Abram,

Usually I write in front of a Christmas tree, its soft colorful lights warmly surrounding your tiny footprints, remembering all that is you.  This year, Thanksgiving falls late, on Nov 28^th, the day you were born.  The last two years, I desperately wanted a tree before then, so that evergreen smell and magic of the season would be in our home, holding your memory with it. One of the last memories I have of you kicking was when we were gathered in the cold after Thanksgiving weekend, picking out the biggest tree we could find for your Christmas. For some reason, the following two years, I needed that clear ritual to remember you, purposeful and planned.

Perhaps this year, sweet boy, Thanksgiving coming late is a lovely reminder, both of the thanks we give every day for you, and because I’ve learned more about remembering and grieving, and how it’s not always perfectly planned or predicted. No matter what time of year or date, you find us in your own quiet way. You spirit has stayed alive and present with us through our seasons, our changes, our growing. And the Christmas tree will always twinkle with our evergreen baby, no matter the date we get it.

I remember your Thanksgiving, our last weekend before a blood clot stopped your heart. Our house was full. There was food; there was visiting. The kids ran in giggling circles, playing airplane with Pops and laughing so hard they had to catch their breath. I remember being oddly content and thankful, not just for myself to have those happy memories, but I knew my Dad’s heart was breaking for his grandson, and a pile of giggling grandkids while celebrating the time we had with you was good for his soul. All of ours, really.

In the movie Inside-Out, all the little spheres of memories are coated in the glowing color of whichever emotion was felt at the time. While I remember that foggy blue sadness of heartache in 2016, I also love to remember the Abram moments that glow in gold, in joy. Like the airplane laughter with Pops and your cousins. Bria and Addie singing loud made-up songs, dancing around your tree glows in my heart. Your grandparents tenderly holding you. Our family baptizing you. Casey and my tummy pressed together, two boys connected. Erin letting us listen to your heartbeat as long as we needed to the first check up after we found out you wouldn’t survive. So many friends pouring love and gifts of wreaths and blankets and ways to remember you into our home and our hearts; dear friends touching my belly; “oh Abram,” they said. Curled up next to your dad on the couch, eating Ben and Jerry’s to spoil you, watching Parks and Rec, finding laughter and holding each other up. I could fill a thousand pages knowing that you, little one, despite having so little time on this earth, are a golden core memory to this world. You are alive in that shining light.

You were so small. So small and fragile, I was afraid to move the blanket you were wrapped in, lest I hurt your tiny body. But it astounds me that such a tiny baby could create such strength, such fierce love, such a deep grounded faith in each other. You are so much bigger than your body we held, Little One.

You would be three. Hard to believe. I still wish you were here with us. In our house. Around the table. Piled in our messy car. Fighting over whose turn it is to roll precariously down the slide. Digging with Bryce and Bria; racing with Adalyn. Riding your bike in the driveway – have I told you I imagine that you love riding your bike, and playing basketball with your Dad?  I wish you were in a bunk bed with Bryce or Bria, another lunch box to pack in the morning. Sometimes it feels so unfair, for something so rare and so severe to happen to a babe, before we even got to know you. Sometimes I flash back to laying beside your dad in bed, him asking if I had felt any kicks, and me crying with the answer, waiting and starting to know you might have gone sooner than we thought. I wanted more than anything to be able to hold you and tell you we loved you, for you to meet your family.  I know now, and am so grateful, that you did know us; that you are with every family member. Our hearts beat together for 22 weeks; mine knows the rhythm of yours forever. I hope you felt how much love we all gave you. I hope you heard our voices. I hope you heard those Christmas carols, and could feel the warmth we tried to wrap you in.

I’ve always loved Christmas. But I love how interwoven you are into the season. The lights. The first blanket of snow falling. The songs and the gatherings and this feeling that there’s something bigger we are all a part of. You’re now in the fiber of that magic, our Christmas Baby.

Adalyn and Bria still ask about you, talk about your star, look for signs of you. They are certain your star is with Grandma’s. I hope she’s making you ice cream cones and reading you books in a rocking chair. Your little brother Bryce likes to pull your scrapbook off the shelf and rearrange the cards. As silly as it sounds, it feels like a moment of endearing brotherhood. He and the girls sometimes hold your small knitted hat. I love that your skin touched it, as they hold it.  Perhaps because I’ve seen Tinkerbell with the girls one too many times, but I feel like there must be a fairy-dust-like magic that trickles like pixie dust to us, from your prints to ours. I remember your hands, no bigger than the top of my pinky, 5 little fingers, resting on your chest; your profile that looked so familiar, a sweet little nose that promised to look like your sisters.

They say the heart knows, and it does. Just as I feel something special when the kids hold what you touched, I know all of our hearts carry your prints. An unimaginably small, unimaginably perfect 22 week foot print, glowing like pixie dust on so many hearts. Tiny, but mighty.

I treasure your footprints within the world, within your grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, your village, within your sisters and brother, within your Dad’s heart, and that special corner of mine, where I feel you every day. My heart feels so many things for you, but most of all, deep, real gratitude to be your mom, that you were our baby, that we got to hold you, that we find ways to love and remember you all the time. That I get to love you fiercely, all of our days.

And we do; we love you, baby boy. Always.

All my heart,
Mom