One year ago today, I woke up preparing to do the unthinkable. Bury my sweet baby boy, who a week earlier was safely residing in my tummy. I was in a fog, my eyes felt blank as I stared, somehow trying to prepare myself.
The day before I was in the bathroom in the morning and coughed. I felt something. I had lost tissue. Tissue that we had to bag up and take to the lab for testing. The horrors seemed to be never ending. Our baby shouldn't have died in my womb, I shouldn't have had to deliver his lifeless body, I shouldn't have had to endure the after effects of his birth, and we shouldn't have had to bury his sweet little body. The test results confirmed that the tissue was part of my placenta, which they had difficulty removing the day of Koen's birth. I had overdone it the day before and was put on strick orders to lay flat. I followed orders for fear of potentially missing the closure I needed at the funeral the next day. I laid flat as my brother and his family arrived with their sweet boys. The youngest was just 5 months, and my heart shattered as I listened to Hackett play with the baby and love every minute. I was so happy that they were there to support us, but it was painful to see exactly what we had lost in our house. I laid flat as the entire house left for Hackett's t-ball game that evening. Life just moves on, but for me and my recovering body and spirit it was standing still.
The morning of the funeral our house was busy, and I didn't want to interact, so I stayed shut in my room, with Kevin so sweetly waiting on my every need. That morning my milk came in. Milk that never arrived for Hackett, decided to come for Koen. My chest was sore. Every hug I received that day physically hurt, but emotionally was even more painful as I was reminded that my body was ready to sustain the life that we had lost.
I couldn't speak that morning. When I finally emerged from my room I sat silently in a chair in the living room, staring out the window trying to comprehend what was about to take place. Kevin and I wanted to be the first to arrive, we took Hackett, and as a family drove to the cemetery. The service was just our immediate family and was in a tiny little chapel on the cemetery grounds. As we pulled up the funeral home vehicle was there, the trunk was open. What we saw were the flowers our friends had lovingly sent and tiniest blue little casket. How do you prepare for that moment?
We had brought our iPad with a speaker so we could play the same sweet praise album we listened to during my labor and our time with Koen. I thought I would be a puddle, but something happened that I had not prepared myself for. Hackett, who had been handling things so well, broke down. The spray of flowers that sat on Koen's casket had two ribbons on it. One said son, the other, the word brother. Hackett just kept stroking that ribbon and crying. It was the first time he was faced with the reality, he did not get to meet Koen like Kevin and I did, and suddenly things got real. Our baby had died, but so did his dreams of having a little brother. A brother he had been snuggling, talking, and singing to for months. Hackett needed his mom, and I shifted from from the grieving mother to a mom who needed to love and reassure her living son.
All of our family came. How touching that they all acknowledged our loss and Koen's brief life. The service was sweet, our pastor read Psalm 139 as we requested, and we sang Amazing Grace. When the service was done it was time to go to the grave site, where the tiny hole had been dug, right in the middle of where one day Kevin and I will be laid to rest. I had not considered the logistics, but Kevin had. I turned and saw him carrying Koen's tiny little casket as he wept. I held on to Kevin, melted into him, and held Hackett's hand. Our family of four walked together, for the only time, to lay Koen to rest. We stood, sobbed, prayed, and then watched as Koen was put into the earth. Kevin and I put in our letters, Hackett tossed a flower. Our family started to depart, but Hackett was not ready. Tears fell from his eyes, and ours. Koen was gone.
We returned to our home and had a small lunch for our family. Hackett was not ready to face anyone, so he and I sat on the couch on our deck as his emotions continued to spill out. His heart was broken. He was angry. I wish I could remember all his pain filled statements, but the one that resonated the most was "I am the only kid, we were supposed to have another kid, and now it's just me again". It broke my heart at a whole other level. We cried together, I held him. After he recovered, we rejoined the rest of our family and celebrated the sadness.
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