This past Saturday I went to my first ever Mother/Son event with Hackett's school. I missed the one in kindergarten. I missed the one in first grade. Sweet special moments, gone. I just read a blog about how quick time passes with our kids, we get 18 summers, and then they fly out of our nest. In many ways I feel like I lost two years, I missed so much, between our loss of Koen and my bedrest with Tobin. Maybe that's why I am so stinking excited to begin our family camping adventures, it's because I get to be an active participant in summer with my family for the first time in years.
The Mother/Son night each year is a minor league baseball game at the stadium in town. I had purchased tickets for Hackett and I to go his kindergarten year, but on the day of the game, we buried Koen. The tragedy of that overwhelms me. In first grade I sent him off with a sweet friend and her son as I lay in my hospital bed in the living room, so amazing of her to share her night with Hackett, but so sad to watch him go without me. I grieve the time I lost with Hackett, not that we would have spent much time together because the nights highlights include the boys playing with their friends, and the moms gabbing with one another. But I wanted to be there for it.
This year I made it, but it was not without a few tears. As I sat down in the stadium my eyes welled up. I had not been there since May 25, 2013 - just two days before I delivered Tobin. I felt strange that night at the game, physically not right, but chalked it up to pregnancy. Looking back at symptoms and decreases in Koen's movement - I think he died that night, at the game. The memories, the regret, are haunting for me. My dear friend was by my side and aware before I even shared. I conquered a giant this Saturday by walking through those gates, and once again being an active participant in life.
Hackett spent just enough time with me to snap this pic with his cotton candy face, and what joy I had watching him love every minute of the night.
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