The last 10 days have just been a horribly emotional blur. Watching a stranger dressed all in black take my baby out of my bed, away from my house and put him in a black minivan and drive away with him was excruciating. Deciding on the mundane details of his funeral service just hours after he passed was torture. Sitting in the funeral home staring at an empty 32" casket while we decided on which prayer cards to give out at his service, which verse to include on those cards, which guest book would suffice, which quote we wanted on his photo tri-fold, what we wanted his obituary to say, deciding when this would all take place...was something I would never wish on any parent.
Going to the cemetery where we decided to have him buried the next day and walking the grounds in order to pick a spot to bury my baby was equally surreal. Drawing up contracts for burial and looking at brochures for headstone monuments was almost more than I could handle. I've been trying my best to be strong and do what needed to be done for our son, but I can't help but replay all those interactions and decisions in my head and just wonder how we got through it.
Calvin's funeral service/visitation/prayers was on Tuesday August 27th and we laid him to rest on Wednesday August 28th. There were so many people there that loved him and came to support us and it's just been absolutely humbling to be surrounded by so much love and support. My family and I will never be able to adequately express how thankful we are to each and every one of you for all the kind words, thoughts, prayers, love, flowers, food, donations and support you have provided us. Even those of you that were not able to make it to his services but sent your love in other ways- thank you so much. It truly has touched us and we are so thankful.
307 days. Our sweet baby boy was a part of this world for 307 short days. I will cherish every single one of those days, as hard as they were at the time, and I will never forget them, for the rest of my life. I'm glad that we were blessed to have him in our lives and I know that we're better people for it. Ryan has been the most amazing daddy and advocate for that boy- Calvin was lucky to have him as his daddy and I'm lucky to have him as my partner in this journey. You never really know how much you love someone or something until they are gone. I don't think either one of us really realized just how deep our love for this baby is until he was taken from us. He was a part of our soul, and he will always be with us. I just hope Calvin knows how much we love him and how much we appreciated him. I hope he knows that we did what we thought was best for him and we made the decisions that we thought were right at the time. I'm so sorry we weren't able to save him...I'm sorry he had such a rough life. But I hope he knows how much he will forever mean to us and to everyone who knew him.
It's hard to believe that just over 10 days ago, I was holding my baby in my arms and now I sit in the grass and look at a pile of overturned dirt that he is buried under. I feel lost, like my identity has been stolen from me. For so long, I've been so busy taking care of Calvin- being his nurse, being his advocate, being his caregiver, being his mom....and all of a sudden I sit here missing all those things...doing nothing. I should be mixing medications, I should be feeding him, I should be changing diapers, I should be holding him, loving him. And I'm not. I sit here in my empty, quiet house, my arms are empty and there's just...nothing. I feel like my heart has been ripped out of my chest. I feel like I don't know who I am anymore. Then I have to tell myself that I'm still Paul's mom, I'm still Ryan's wife...in a few weeks I'll be a mom to a newborn again. But that doesn't take away the pain of losing Calvin. I don't think anything ever will. To be completely honest, I'm terrified of how hard the birth of our daughter will hit me while I'm still in the trenches of grief and mourning the loss of my baby boy. I'm scared that I won't be able to be happy about the baby. I'm scared that all the memories and pain of Calvin being flown to the NICU the day after he was born will come flooding back when I'm in the hospital. I'm scared that all the milestones she will inevitably hit, that Calvin never did, will be like a knife through my heart. I don't know how I'm going to handle it....but I will. We will.
Once again, thank you, from the bottom of our hearts. We truly are humbled by all the outpouring of love and support and will never be able to thank you all.
God's Garden
God looked around His garden
And found an empty place.
He then looked down upon the earth,
And saw your tired face.
He put His arms around you
And lifted you to rest.
God’s garden must be beautiful
He always takes the best.
He knew that you were suffering
He knew that you were in pain
He knew that you would never
Get well on earth again.
He saw the road was getting rough,
And the hills were hard to climb,
So He closed your weary eyelids
And whispered "Peace be thine".
It broke our hearts to lose you
But you didn’t go alone,
For part of us went with you
The day God called you home.
Rest in peace, baby boy. We will love you until the day we see you again and your life will not be forgotten. <3
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