I'll Keep You In My Heart

I remember the day you were born. Your daddy called you his little champ, because you cried so loud and so long. He called me his trooper because I didn’t cry at all. But how could I possibly cry honey? As soon as I saw your face, and I realized you were perfect and all mine forever, I got this warm feeling all over me, even on the inside. But, I guess forever has a way of deciding how long it’s going to last. And, sometimes, it’s not quite as long as we want it to.
         
That warm feeling has now been replaced with cold all over. Sometimes, it’s not even cold, but a numbness that I’m not even sure I can feel. I just know it’s there because you aren’t here. I guess this is the way it felt before I had you, I just didn’t know it. I didn’t know how empty life could be without you, because I had never counted your toes or kissed your head while you were sleeping. I had never been surprised with sticky kiss or heard you belly laugh. I never knew I wanted those things so much until I woke up one day and didn’t have them anymore.
         
I haven’t cried yet. Your daddy doesn’t call me his trooper now though. He won’t even look at me. But don’t you worry about that, honey. You just enjoy being in heaven like you were always meant to be. I know you’re there, because you brought heaven to me while you were here. So I know that it was always part of you. Heaven’s perfect, I’ve heard. And you were the only perfect thing I’ve ever come across in this world. That’s just one more reason why I know you’re there.
         
My days are empty and silent now. I’ve spent the last four years tuning myself in to the sound of little feet running down the hallway and into the kitchen, and giggling when you played with the dog’s ears, and to the sound of your Talking Tigger that made bouncy motions and growled like the Winnie the Pooh character. I’ve gotten used to knowing that if everything was completely silent, you were either sleeping or up to something that I needed to get you out of. Now, the silence is the loudest thing that I think I’ve ever heard. The sounds of you have been replaced with the dog pacing up and down the hallway trying to find you, and the empty sound the door makes when your daddy gets home from work and nobody greets him. There is no giggling in this house. The only voices I hear are the ones on the other end of the telephone line when family and friends call to tell me that they’re “So sorry,” or they, “called as soon as they heard.” Nobody really knows what to say.
         
Today, I sat on the front porch alone and thought about you. It’s actually improper to say that I thought about you, because you are the new default in my brain. I’m never not thinking about you, or something having to do with you. It’s rare if I think of something other than you. And I don’t really consider it thinking anymore. It’s more like you’re in my head constantly, and when I’m thinking I’m actually talking to you. I might be going a little insane, but I don’t really mind as long as it feels like you’re here somehow. So, I guess the right thing to say would be that I was sitting on the porch with you. But either way, I was just sitting when a breeze blew in my direction. It was the kind that, previously, I would have loved. I would have snatched you up from whatever you were doing and carried you outside. We would have sat there for hours, sometimes until your daddy came home, just sitting and enjoying the outside. But this time, instead of the feeling of happiness I would have usually gotten from a breeze like that, it felt like a million knives were stabbing me in the stomach. My throat started to hurt and I was afraid I was going to stop breathing, because it hit me that there would be no more snatching you up and taking you outside. I could wander around my tomb of a house until I fell flat on my face, but I would never find you. I would never plant your little bottom on the grass and show you butterflies and flowers again. I think I cried then, but I don’t know for sure. Like I said, sometimes I can’t feel anything.
         
I think the dog is losing his mind along with me. He never stops pacing, and when he does, he lies in front of your door and looks up with those big Basset Hound eyes and glares at me like he knows for sure I’m keeping you locked in there. I wish I could ease his mind, but he just won’t be comforted. I used to think you annoyed him, with the way he huffed and puffed when you pulled on his ears, but I guess not. He’s an old dog, and he should rest instead of pacing. I’m not sure he ever will though. The old hound has been around for a while, and I used to think the worst thing in the world would be when he passed away, as much a part of the family as he is. I’ve realized now that there are worse tragedies in the world, and I’m not sure I’ll even notice when he’s gone.
         
I haven’t brought myself to go into your room yet. Neither has your daddy. Or, maybe, he has. I don’t know. We don’t speak much these days. I doubt he has, though, for the same reasons I haven’t. I’m not sure I’d be able to bear seeing your little red blanket, or the Winnie the Pooh décor. I remember decorating your room, before you got here. I’m sure your daddy and I looked like a picture out of a magazine. I was wearing overalls because they were the only clothes that fit comfortably over the bump that was you, and I know for a fact that my hair was in pigtails. We both had smudges of blue paint on our faces; blue that represented the baby boy we were so desperately looking forward to. I was the one who decided to completely smother your room with Winnie the Pooh. I had a million quotes and pictures that I wanted, but we finally decided on, “Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart” to put over your crib. It’s funny how much those words would come to haunt me later on.
         
I don’t really know how I’m going to go about living when I feel so empty. Maybe, one day, your daddy will be able to look at me again, the dog will stop pacing, and the calls will stop coming. Maybe, I’ll be able to sit outside on a windy day without feeling like I’m going to stop breathing. No, things will never be the same again, that’s for sure. You can’t go four years of your life seeing, feeling, and breathing in a miracle every day and then expect things to just go back to normal when God takes that miracle back. I just don’t think that’s the way it works. But, I’m starting to realize that having even one day with you was the real miracle. And I know you’ll always be with me. So, I guess all I can do for now is remember.
         
“If ever there comes a day when we aren’t together, keep me in your heart. I’ll stay there forever.”
                   -Winnie the Pooh