Happy 5th Birthday, Jacob!

February 9, 2021

Hey buddy,

We miss you… happy 5th birthday. Five is such a big kid age – it feels like just yesterday that we held you in our arms. That it’s been five years is mind-boggling to me.

This morning we did what felt strangely perfect for us: we played at home and cleaned and we were… together. It felt like you were with us in some ways. Just what we imagined life to be like – normal. Together. All of us.

There’s a mystery almost, a hiddenness to your birthday. I go to sleep the night before thinking how I was in active labor on the night of the 8th, and didn’t know it. I wake up in the morning on the 9th and have a few short hours before inevitably realizing it’s 9:30am and thinking, “and now he’s gone.”

Your life was so big and large to me that the swiftness of living out your full hours breathing outside of me nearly within a nights sleep takes my own breath away. Again, a whole lifetime of love we fit into a perfect seven hours. I miss how you felt on my chest.

I’ve grown as your mom in so many ways this year. So confident that your life is meaningful even if you were remembered by no one but me. (And God, and that feels significant.) So trusting that you will always hold a special place in our family – always impacting us much like ocean waves continue to soften the rocks along shore. So secure in my identity as a mom of more than what my hands and Christmas cards show. So much more in awe of you and who you are, remembering more details than I feared I’d forget.

As your brother and sister continue to grow I’m continually learning to come to terms with the fact that I’ll grieve what we didn’t have with you – and never will. Looking at your sister knowing she was so meant to be a second-born and yet she holds the position of oldest. Realizing that your brother would have loved to be in your shadow, following all the ways you tumble around like him. Making decisions for them with a distinct awareness that if you were here I’d have made these before. Looking at other kids your age so far from the baby stage, entering kindergarten and playing on sports teams and losing teeth, and remembering you’ll forever be a newborn, seven hours old.

This year I’m allowing myself to feel that tension of never knowing truly what we would have been like without your death but also celebrating who we never would have been without your life.

Jacob, you’ve changed me. Five years in and I grow more and more in awe of how your tootsie roll arms and perfectly circular cheeks, bruised as they were through birth, could have made such a significant impact on me and our family. There are times I want to save it all for myself, holding your memories and who you were as tight as possible, as if you were my personal secret treasure that I got to have on my own. But as I’m reminded again this year, your life has touched many, and sharing you only brings greater motherly joy and love – and pride for you.

I imagine you would love legos and building forts, playing with some sort of ball and reading books like your brother. You’d be writing your name and making all sorts of creations with your sister – who is quite obsessed with you right now, by the way. She loves talking about you and she wonders a lot with me what you’re like. She knows that you love lions (I know, you had no say in the matter) and she thinks you’re so cute.

I see the empty chair at our table and I wonder what you would say if you could add to our conversation, but I remind myself as I tell her that while we can be sad here on earth because we miss you, we can celebrate that you’re in Heaven, experiencing eternity with Jesus. She tells me maybe we can come get you and bring you home from Heaven later, and I just smile and say yes, maybe, because I want that so badly.

Jacob, you have etched yourself into the entire makeup of our family and for that, I am grateful. You make us proud and full of hope. You point us to where goodness and love can be found while also keeping us from becoming too attached to the temporary world we live in. You brighten my heart and you give me such joy, just being your mom.

And yes, there are tears today, as there often are – following bursting out in laughter over something ridiculous and tucked into the shadows of a few moments alone and behind closed doors. But those tell me how much I love you, and miss you, and how all of this is simply not as it should be. And with that, there’s laughter, and dreaming, and playing, too. Because this is life – a mixture of both.

Jacob, five years feels like an eternity and also like yesterday. Your life has enriched mine so deeply and I’m honored that you’re mine. I’d give anything to hold you again here, to watch you grow up, and to celebrate you here with a shared cupcake or donut. I miss you like crazy. Sweet boy, you changed me. You made me a mother. Forever I carry you in my heart and treasure our time together.

I love you, sweet boy – and I miss you.

with all the hugs and kisses you can stand,

Mom