My sweet boy, oh how I wish this was a nightmare I could wake up from. There are so many memories and so many things I always thought I had time to show you and tell you. Unfortunately, life had other plans and because of that the memories, photos and unsaid words are all I have left of you and our life. I have no idea how to do this life without you kiddo, after all I was preparing you to live without me someday, not the other way around. All I can do is put my thoughts, feelings and memories down and try to navigate my pain. I just pray everything I do is something to honor you and make you proud.

June of 2006, I found out I was pregnant with you, just two months after turning 15. I was shocked, scared and did not know what to do and then I heard your heartbeat for the first time. Although I was a young, broke kid that had no means to support a child there was never any other thought besides I was having a baby, and I was going to keep my baby. The choice I made was not easy and at the time I had no idea just how difficult things would be in time. No one can prepare you to be a teen parent, let alone a teen parent to a very sick baby. From the moment you came in this world you were fighting, fighting to get here and fighting to stay here. I do not think you ever had an easy, normal day throughout your life. Regardless of the challenges you faced with your health you met the challenges with such grace and love. Having you is what taught me unconditional love and sacrifice, you helped mold me into the mother and woman I am today. You had such a big love for people and for life in general and I do not think you ever met a stranger. The way you loved and cared for the people in your life is what I want people to always remember about you because that is one of the most beautiful things about you son.

I have such pride in having you as a son. You are my first-born child and my only son. So much of who I am as a woman and a mother is because I have you as a son. You have always been and will always be such a part of me, so much so that I cannot breathe most days without you here. See I always thought because I had you younger, I would get to love you longer, that we would get to grow up and grow old together. There were so many plans that you had and that I had as a mother. We were talking and planning your engagement to Shelby and dreaming of how the future you had ahead would play out, because you had so much life left to live. You were supposed to become a fiancé, a husband, a father, an uncle, you were supposed to get old enough to have a head full of grey hair. There is no doubt in my mind that your future was bright, beautiful and felt almost guaranteed. I know nothing in life is guaranteed but it just felt as if your future was, because you had fought so hard to have one that you deserved everything you ever dreamt of and more. Just as nothing could have prepared me to have you when I was 15, nothing could have prepared me to lose you when you were 19.

The shock, denial and deep-rooted sorrow I have been feeling since I got the news is something I could have never imagined. In all of your life the most time I spent away from you was when you were a baby and spent two months in the nicu fighting for your life and now it has been almost three months since I have seen your smile, heard your laugh or caught you in the pantry at two in the morning. This sense of emptiness and devastation that has followed your death is something I can barely put into words. It truly feels like my life stopped the day I lost you. I know you would hate to see me sad, and you would hate to see the number of tears shed but there is nothing that anyone can say or so to make them stop. There is no fix or resolution for what I am feeling because the only thing that could fix this pain is the one thing I will never get back in this lifetime and that is to see my son walk through my door and say, “hey mama”. I spent 7,041 days of my life with you by my side, and I am thankful for every second of everyday, but I will always want more. You were taken from us in the middle of the night, in the middle of the week, in the middle of so many unfinished things. It will never be fair, it will never make sense, and I do not know that it will ever hurt less. I hope you knew and know that I love you deeply & I miss you more than I ever knew was possible. For the rest of my days, you will be the piece that is missing from me and oh how I will forever long to get that piece back.

Until we meet again kiddo. I love you more.