Infant and Child Death Awareness Life...

Here's the thing. It's October. October is Infant & Child Death Awareness Month. I get it. I get that we need a month. But here's the other thing...My life is Infant and Child Death Awareness Life. There isn't a day when I'm not thinking about it. There are moments certainly, and hours, but even during those times my body is keenly and highly aware. It screams out even though you cannot see it screaming that it is Infant and Child Death Awareness Life! I know it...

These past few years with Facebook so prominent in all of our lives, we tag each other, virtual hugs, virtual memories, virtual reminders that we are not alone. We tag each other in our pictures and in our memories and on each other's pages and it makes me feel like someone, somewhere remembers and that makes me feel so loved.

And yet, this year, this day, this month, I find myself afraid to tag anyone. Why? Because I know too many mamas and papas without. I know too many children who have left this earth too soon. And I am worried I will forget. And forgetting, I also remember, hurts the most from the ones you thought loved you the most.

I do not want to forget anyone's child. I worry all the time about forgetting someone's child, someone's anniversary, someone's birthday, someone's day they found out, someone's day they had hope and then lost their hope, the day they brought their child home from the hospital, the day the knock came on the front door, the day the telephone rang with a different ring than it had ever rung before, the day the tubes were put in, the day the tubes were taken out, the day the crash happened, the day the shot rang out, the day the technician put the gel on the tummy and looked into my eyes and told me, the last day the child crossed the street, the last time he got on a motorcycle, the first day the doctor said "I think something is wrong," the first day the doctor said, "I think she'll be okay," the last day the doctor said, "I'm sorry," the last day they ran out the door together to go to the jewelry shop, the last day she got into the car with her best friend, the last time he was buckled into his car seat with his mom driving the car, the day he forgot to take her out of the car, the day the television fell on her, the day she was shot through the head, the day he was shot in the desert, the last day he got into the car, the last day she got into the car, the last day he came home with his mom and dad from the hospital, the last day....

I am terrified of forgetting each and every day of all of these children's beautiful lives, and still I know there has been a day when I haven't gone online, the day I didn't see someone's page, the day I forgot and for all of those days I am so so sorry. So for today I remember and hold all your children, each and everyone one of them and I hold them all because of my own child and this is in fact perhaps Grace's greatest gift: that I can remain in the company of so many beautiful children gone too soon. And this is never ever gift enough but it is something and it is beautiful and I remember you and him and her and all of them and I will never ever forget.