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….

Sonzee "turns" 9

Dear Sonzee, 

The first sentence that comes into my mind is, I can't believe today (would've, could've, should've) been your 9th birthday. That is how most of my current thoughts start when it comes to you because really, I can't believe how much time has passed since you were born and since you have died. This was the 5th birthday we celebrated without you here. The last age you were was 4. I have so many unanswered questions about who you even are. It is difficult to honor someone when you don't know them, and it is even doubly hard when they were someone you once knew better than yourself. I still have to ask myself, how is this even real?

Today I woke up and started my day looking at February 11 in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. I skipped 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. I came across a not-at-the-forefront-of-my-mind gem that was aba feeding you frosting from 2 cupcakes for you to indicate your preference. That 2nd birthday of yours was miserable. You cried in 100% of the pictures taken, and babysitter Paige did a family shoot for us with our cute matching outfits. You really could have cared less, and that you did. You clearly were bothered by the seizures and pain. 

It is funny, how aba reminded me how much I hated your birthdays during your life. I can promise, I hate them even more now in your death. There was just something so painful about reliving your birth and those first few weeks afterward every year while watching you suffer and miss every age-appropriate milestone. And now, well now you miss everything. I, however, do not miss watching you suffer, but I do miss not knowing the little girl you would be. Let's be honest though, it was a challenge to know who you were when you were alive too. It's not ideal either way.

Noam, Tzviki, aba, and I went to your grave and gave you your birthday rocks. Your sisters didn't want to come. I was torn in my mind over whether I should force them to or not. On the one hand, if they don't want to go maybe it's because it makes them sad, or maybe their grief is indicating they want to honor you a different way. On the other hand, what if it is just them wanting to put something else above you, and then I feel that isn't fair. I am all for variations in grieving, but it hurts my heart too much to have them just pretend today isn't a family day or that it isn't an important day. After visiting you we felt we should go to Starbucks and I bought myself a pretty tumbler as "your gift". Then we drove all around Scottsdale picking up your siblings from their previous night's sleepovers.

We were supposed to go watch a show, but it was canceled last minute, so I spent the afternoon getting addresses together for Tzvi's bar mitzvah save the date invitation that have to go out (once they come, after I fix the incorrect date (and aba thinks I have it all together, HA!)) We then went to bubbies and pop-pop made pizza's and bubbie made pasta and a wonderful red birthday cake for you with the perfect bear center! I couldn't have asked for a better way to celebrate your birthday, well except if you were here. 

Anyway baby girl. I hope wherever you are everyone made you feel special and that you had a spectacular day. I have no idea what I will have to plan to honor you turning double digits, so it's a good thing I have 365 days to figure that out. 

I love you and miss you beyond words!

Until next time. 

Love always,

Ema

Sonzee "turns" 8

Dear Sonzee, 

Today, 8 years ago you came quickly into our lives, but 3 years and 8 days ago you slowly left. Making it your 4th birthday we have had to celebrate without you here. It doesn't make sense to celebrate a day when the reason, you, is missing, yet here we are, again. The truth is, this year was the easiest. All of your many signs over the last few weeks have been a significant help with that.

A bit over a year ago a friend of mine realized her father shared the same yahrzeit as you, the 8 of Shvat. She came with us to say kaddish at your grave. While she was there she also noticed that you and her father also shared an English birthday. Aba says the chances of that are about 1 in 40,000. We know how well you understand rare.

On Thursday this week, this friend invited us for Shabbas lunch today. At the time neither of us was thinking about the date. On Thursday night, before leaving for hockey with Tzvi aba asked me if I wanted to celebrate your birthday with a cake. As usual, when aba asks me about plans to honor one of your dates I snapped. Why would I want to have a cake? We have never had a cake, why start this year? He gave reasons why, but I continued to be annoyed. The conversation ended.

Yesterday morning I received a text. It read that my friend's children and she were going to be making a cake for her father, would I like her to add your name to the cake because birthdays can be so hard. I paused. I had forgotten that you and her father shared your birthdays. I immediately smiled and said yes, that would be amazing. It's funny how that came together. I knew that it was meant to be after that text, after all, I am sure you were involved in this orchestration. 

8 years ago you came into this world and everything we ever knew about life and parenting went out the window. Usually, on a person's birthday, they make a wish, they get gifts, and they are celebrated. For 4 years your wishes were your secret only. For 4 years the gifts you got weren't anything you could have asked for. For 4 years you were celebrated the best way we knew how. For 4 years I wished that you would no longer suffer, that you would find peace, and that you would be able to be free. For 4 years you gave me the gift of your life. For 4 years you let us celebrate you with hugs, kisses, and love, the only way we knew how. For the last 4 years, you have made my wish come true. For the last 4 years, you have given me the gift of believing in faith, in signs, and a new beginning of trust in Hashem. For the last 4 years, you have given me the ability to continue to celebrate you.

Thank you for choosing us to be your parents, for allowing us the greatest opportunity of trusting us to help you complete your earthly mission, and for helping me to see that you are never really as far away as it some days feels. 

I hope your actual wishes can be spoken, be heard, and have come true, and I pray when the time is meant to be, that I am given the gift of seeing you live them, so we can celebrate together.

Happy 8th birthday baby girl!

Until next time.

Love always, 

Ema

Sonzee "turns" 7

Dear Sonzee Bear, 

It has been 9 days since you should've? would've? could've? but didn't turn 7.  It has taken me 9 days to be able to sit down and reflect on the fact that another, your 3rd to be precise, birthday has passed here on earth without you to celebrate.  I will forever find February 11 one of those dates that just doesn't make sense.  How could it?  It is your day of birth, a day to honor you, a day to celebrate you coming into this world...but you aren't here anymore, so I don't really understand what to do.  I don't really understand how to best approach it.  While I know there are various schools of thought on how to celebrate or honor the day, nothing has quite felt right for us; maybe it will happen with time? 

I found myself this year not even able to decorate your grave and not even able to visit it because I was with Tzvi in North Dakota.  I was able to sift through my emotions and at least push the guilt of that aside.  After all, the decorations are really just for me, and I don't need to go to North Scottsdale if I want to talk to you or see you.  It is really hard to believe all that, but deep down I know it to be true.  There is still this immense suffocating grief life guilt that is nearly impossible to navigate.  I tell myself that you have siblings who are alive, who need me now, but that makes me angry that it's the truth.  I remind myself that I won't parent you the same way I do your siblings nor the way I once did.  That is just an ugly reality, I get it, both parts, the ugly and the reality.  It still hurts. It still doesn't make me feel any better,  It doesn't help the self-imposed motherly guilt that comes because you won't ever not be my child and I will forever feel like you are being slighted. 

I will say for the third time, I am sorry we didn't do anything for you on your birthday.  I hope all of your friends threw you one incredible party.  I hope saba was able to come.  I hope you ate ice cream, whipped cream, and as much cake as you wanted.  I hope you danced around and celebrated in whatever way you wanted.  I hope you are enjoying another year free, but I still will always wish I could be there with you.  I wish I could sing happy birthday to you and watch you blow out candles or in the reality that we lived, watch your siblings blow them out for you while you pressed a switch of some sort or used your eye gaze to indicate whatever you wanted to let us know.

Maybe next year I will be able to tackle this grieving a bit better and be on top of your birthday and all of the other challenging dates that face me in January and February.  Maybe.  No promises though.  I am sorry.

I wish for you an incredible year of you being 7.  Wherever you are, with all of your friends, doing whatever you want.  I am sure you are as beautiful as ever!  I love you my forever in my mind little 4-year-old princess who is now 7.

Until next time.

Love always, 

Ema

Sonzee "turns" 6

Dear Sonzee Bear, 

Another birthday we didn't get to celebrate together, it seems wrong to have a day on the calendar in honor of the birth of you when you are no longer here.  Aba made a statement about how he didn't want to celebrate today because a birthday is the celebration of life, and now there is nothing to celebrate.  Valid (horrifically painful) point.  Man, this sucks.  I wish I could say this year was easier than last year, but it isn't, it is far worse.  I hope it was the exact opposite for you.

I wore my usual birthday outfit in honor of you despite the circumstances.  Had I actually ventured out into public and had a conversation about the balloon leggings, I am sure it would have been fantastic to mention I was wearing them in honor of my dead daughter. I spent this morning with Corrinne's mommy.  We spent the time literally sitting on you, drinking our Starbucks in some beautiful Phoenix weather.  It was the perfect way to spend your day.  I can imagine you had an extravagant party considering so many of your friends are with you for this one.  I hope they made you feel beyond special.  I hope you ate cake and ice cream and ran around in a beautiful wonderland with your curly pigtails and no doubt, a cute outfit.  You have probably another year until you would be too old to wear the pigtails without rolling your eyes at me.

Besides decorating your grave, I am sorry we didn't do anything to celebrate you.  No one here even mentioned cake or cupcakes in your honor.  I mean, to be honest, besides that horrible keto cupcake I made for your first birthday, you never had more than a lick or bite of food anyway, so what would have been the point?! Meena made a sign for you and hung it on the front window.  Today she finally got her "Sonzee and I" book.  Now all of your siblings have a book of you and them individually.  

I spent some time today, as much as I could before it was just simply way too difficult, looking at your birthday pictures.  I realized that for 4 years we were distracted with the reality of what today really was.  You were here, so the focus became on celebrating you, and now you are not, so the focus went back to the day we first met. You were able to meet your siblings one by one, and I have some of the sweetest pictures of them standing on stools to be able to touch you, but it wasn't the first meeting I had envisioned.  There was a picture of the lab results the NICU team wrote on paper, at the time I didn't understand any of it, but it makes me chuckle now that I can talk medical slang like it's my job.  It was such an emotionally draining day, but it turned out to be the most accurate foreshadowing of your life.  Me with you in a hospital, scared and unsure of what was going on and going to come for a lengthy period of time, and aba at home with your siblings.  

Oh, my little girl, I wish there was some compromise I could make with g-d to be able to peak through a window into your world.  I trust you are beyond amazing.  I trust you are free and your soul has elevated to the highest place possible, and maybe even beyond because of your incredibleness. But I am just so lost without knowing the specifics.  You can go ahead and laugh at how my gut isn't enough for me anymore and I need the proof.  

I wish you another incredible year full of comfort and peace, and I selfishly wish that you would find a way to help me find just a little of that for myself without you being here.

Happiest of what would have been your sparkly, shining, glitzy 6th birthday my love.

Love always, 

Ema