4th Anniversary / Thanksgiving

It has been four years now, four years since we lost our baby boy, heard him laugh, saw him smile. Where has the time gone? Sometimes it feels like only yesterday, other times it feels like a million years since we've held him in our arms, or kissed his baby soft skin. We have worked really, really hard at life since Max left. We've worked hard to honor his memory and to keep on living. Fall is especially difficult, and despite all of the efforts to keep the sadness away, grief is a powerful force, and it manages to creep in. Halloween parties, volunteering, meetings, play dates, get-togethers, and work all serve as distractions, and we try to pack our fall with activities. Everyone thinks we are psycho for having bought and wrapped, and even shipped many of our Christmas gifts already, but we do it because we have to. Because if we sit around for too long with nothing to do in November, it all comes crashing down around us. This week, grief week, there is no keeping the sadness at bay.

People keep asking what we are doing for the Thanksgiving Holiday. We just say, "staying in town, what are you doing?" What we would love to say is, " Grieving. Fighting hard to survive what should be a joyous holiday. Trying not to panic when we see everyone at the grocery store loading their carts for Thanksgiving dinner. Putting on a brave face for our daughter. Reliving our son's last days, the sound of his very last breath. Remembering the look of sheer helplessness and terror in our spouse's eyes as we watched Max slip away, giving Max a bath after he left us and dressing him so that his sister could come over from the Ronald McDonald House and say goodbye, watching Grace climb into bed with him so happy that he was no longer connected to tubes, and try and stick his pacifier in his mouth." That is what we would like to say, so that people know just how hard this is.

Without a doubt we are grateful this Thanksgiving and always. We are probably more thankful than most people. To have survived this, to have such a wonderful daughter and spouse, to have had Max even for such a short time, to have managed to create a new life for ourselves - these are all things to be grateful for. But it will be hard, harder than anyone can imagine unless they have gone through it themselves. It is true that as time goes by, the day to day gets easier. We just have to accept the fact that Thanksgiving is always going to suck. This holiday weekend we will take Grace to the movies, visit with friends, and shop. We will get through it like we always do, but oh how we miss our son, and how our hearts ache for him.

What we miss today and always:


Happy Thanksgiving,

Margaret, Mike, and Grace