My dearest Sebastian,

Happy 5th Birthday in Heaven! Another year has come and gone since your untimely passing. I often wonder what it would be like to have you here, or what it would have been like to wake up to an excited birthday boy. Is it selfish of Mummy to dream of all those things? This is the 5th Birthday letter I am writing to you. It seems to become tradition. Every year my body as if moulded seems to remember the days prior to your death and birth so vividly.  This year it really hurts. I found myself collapsed on my carpet yesterday crying like that time after you died. Those heart wrenching tears that no-one should ever have to hear or witness. Tears of deep pain. A yelping pain of a kind only known to bereaved mothers and fathers.

I’ve felt lost these past few days, isolated, and completely broken. It was like I was transported back into time back to that hospital room where you died.  I wonder what we’d be doing if you were still here.  I know you would have started primary school.  I always hoped to enrol you in Slovak Folk dance classes. I don’t know if you would have liked it. But it was a dream and a hope that I had for you.

The ‘New Year’ seems to start for me every time your birthday comes round. I see it as a marker of time, a marker of my reality. I measure my progress every year on your birthday for some odd reason. Have I made progress since your death? Or have I fallen backwards into time? Has everything around me unravelled? I know at the time of your death I prayed for a miracle. I desperately prayed and cried out to the Lord to save you and to take me home. I was bargaining with Him. Trying to make the Lord see that it would be better for you to live. But when I think about it now – it wouldn’t have been fair on you to not have had a Mummy if I had died. What is a mother called that has lost a child? A child that loses his/her parent is called an orphan.

Time seems to fly. Lots of things have happened this year. Good and bad. Bad and good. But healing does occur. God is good and He watches over me. He’s not let me down. I suppose the most significant development of this year is being a part of a family. Belonging with a family that loves me for who I am and knowing that I can come home to them. Knowing that I am safe and secure. The only thing that I find the hardest to deal with is you not being here. Me writing away to a computer screen, typing out a letter to you once more. In my quiet times, in my handwritten journals I write to you all the stuff on my heart that not everyone needs to see, all the desires of my heart, my hopes for a future.

I feel like 5 years is a marker of time. A reality check. This is the reality I am living with now. You’re there in Heaven, I’m here on Earth. I wonder – will I ever get to meet you in Heaven? I did not get to meet you here on Earth, so I hope that one day you and I will meet and we’ll hug each other and tell each other of our respective journeys.

Being pregnant with you was probably the best thing that happened to me. I love you so much dear sweet boy. During my pregnancy with you we journeyed together united as one. Mother and son. Son and mother. You taught me so much about God’s love, about God’s grace, and mercy in that short space of time. I was so privileged to have you with me. I was honoured to be your Mum. And then one day you were called home to be with our Father God in Heaven. Your work here on Earth was done, and you bloomed up there in the clouds. What a honour to be a Mum of such a special child. I knew you were a wise soul when I was pregnant with you.

I don’t know if you know – or if you ever knew how much Mummy loved you, loves you still. You are a part of me. You left this massive footprint on my heart. Sometimes it is grieving for what is not to be, sometimes it is rejoicing. Sometimes it is still before the Lord wondering if I will ever be a Mum again. You have that special place in my heart precious child. I love you and would have loved to see you grow, and explore the world around you. But we are where we are.

I hope you have a wonderful birthday in Heaven Sebastian.  Sitting at the Lord’s feet. I pray that one day I get to see and meet you again, and feel you in my arms. I wonder what you would write to me?

Till we meet again, know that I will always love you.

Love you always Sebastian.
Missing you as always.
Your loving Mama
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox