Sonzee "turns" 10

Dear Sonzee, Somewhere, somehow you are now double digits. I wonder if you would have figured out sitting independently or have taken your first independent steps by now. I wonder if you’d be tiny like your sisters or maybe you were given the genes your brother is excitedly anticipating getting? Would you have spent the last 5 years struggling with your feeds or would you have “grown out” of that? Maybe your seizures would have calmed down too and we could have learned more about who the real you actually was; not just the Sonzee on way too many medications. I wonder what you have been up to for the last 5 years. How have you celebrated your birthday in Gan Edan? Do you have new friends? Are you still friends with the kids we knew who joined you or were there for you first? Are you actually free? Do you know that you are? I wonder if you know how difficult it is for me to honor this day, because it’s not normal for a parent to celebrate the birthday of their dead kid. It’s not normal that you aren’t here to celebrate your own birth! Its not normal to decorate a grave. It’s not normal that your last physical birthday was when you turned 4. It’s not normal this day is even still on the calendar. In many ways this day is worse than all of the other days that surround you because today should be about YOU. It should be about all of the growth you’ve made during your LIFE. It should be about the last year of all of things YOU have done. But instead, it’s just another year of your grave collecting rocks (that I may not be able to even paint anymore before cemetery owners are stupid- but that’s for another day), another year of wondering about you, another year “reminding” me that I have no control in this life and that’s just the way it goes. So, wherever you are baby girl - do whatever makes you happy, and if you could ever come and see me, I’d really really love it! Happy 10th birthday Sonzee…you are beyond loved and missed….

Five years

Dear Sonzee, 

It officially happened. You have been absent from our physical presence for more than 5 years. I still cannot wrap my head around this. It seems impossible, yet at the same time it makes perfect sense. After all, so much has happened since you left us. There is truth to the whole concept of life stands still after your child dies, but it seems to only affect the parents, because for everyone else, life just continues. There was a definite divide of life before your death and life since. Life since seems to go by at the speed of light but yet in a slow motion form. It really doesn't make sense when I try to assign the motion words. Maybe if you could imagine the blurred images of a slow motion movie but the background is going a million miles a minute with streaks of light. 

Somehow we ended up 5 years post your death. I just cannot comprehend it. I thought I had this whole grief thing figured out somewhere between year 3-4, but Mrs. Penny reassured me after my last mini break down that that won't even come into the discussion until maybe year 8. Life wiithout you has certainly changed, but it is not any easier. I have just managed to figure out how (althought sometimes I doubt it) to wake up every day and plaster a happy smile across my face and act like I am just the jolliest human around. I probably fool 90% of the people I come in contact with that my life is perfect. That I am lucky, because I have 2 boys and 2 girls. That we are fortunate because we can afford to have our kids in all of these extracurricular activities. That aba and I have this perfect marriage that didn't almost fall apart because of having a child with complex needs who physically up and left us. That we get to travel and take amazing family pictures. But, anyone who actually knows us knows that all of these statements couldn't be further from the truth, but 5 years post your death and we have a certain rhythm that makes us look like "we've got this" (we don't).

Year 5 brought less people (thankfully) sending the once a year text saying they were thinking about me. In fact, the same people who reached out to me today reach out to me constantly through the year. It makes me feel less angry to be honest. Morah Zupnick texted me, "Sending you lots of love and protection from the stupid idiots who are going to text you when they haven't in a year". Maybe year 5 finally has weeded those people out. The ones who I know mean well, but yet frustrate me because why only think about me today? Why not realize I am feeling the same horrific pain and loss during every. other. single, day. of. the. damn. year????? Today is just an in our face reminder of the obvious fact that you are physically missing from our lives. Whether today happened or not we would still feel your absence, and we do. A LOT. The same will hold true for Thursday when we have to do this dreaded day again for the 8 of Shvat, but even worse because people will undoubtedly send me birthday wishes as well for my hebrew birthday (as if that's what I want to think about on that day!!!??). I can't say these thoughts directly to people, but hopefully they read this and feel less insulted at my stance? Hopefully they can appreciate the mixture of emotions that I struggle with on the daily. The ones where I put my feelings aside to make others feel less awkward or better about their wishful attempts of being sincere. I know, it's both an issme and a personal problem, but I am working on it.

This whole year 5 of your absence has finished out with a lot of change that I am not ready to share just yet, but it added a nice extra knife twist to your absence. It no doubt came from you, but it isn't 100% easy for me to accept just yet, but like all else, in time it will be. 

I hope you like all of your new rocks and the new setup of your stepping stones. Hard to even fathom that next week you will be turning ten. I am working on your present currently and I hope you like all of the changes and organizing I have done with your space. You are so very missed baby girl. I know you visited Nurse paige, and if you are ever so inclined, I'd love to have a glimpse of your new life. Or you could just let me know a little about it, like who your friends are, any drama you have experienced, the milestones you have achieved. I would take whatever it is you could share with me. 

But until then and until next time. 

I love you baby girl!

Love always, 

Ema