who i am today

dear cooper

yesterday was your due date. you would have been three. three years old. and likely there would have been no mason. and i would have been a whole different person. i would not be who i am today.

i carried you inside of me for just over half of a term pregnancy. i held you in my arms for only ten minutes. but no other person in this world has ever had quite the impact you have had on me.

your birth changed me. forever.

over these three years i have pissed people off. i have lost friends. i have been mean. i have wished for bad things to happen to good people. i have begrudged people of their happiness. i have felt hate. and anger. and jealousy. and sadness. and despair. and hopelessness.

but i have also learned so much about love. and life. and yes it sounds cliche. but it's true. i have made new and wonderful friends. i have strengthened bonds with old friends. i have watched your big cousins grow up and admired their dad as he learns more every day about being their dad. i have had people thank me for talking so openly about you. i have had people thank me for pissing people off because along the way they have learned something they might not otherwise have known and their lives have changed because of it. i have had people tell me that people i don't even know have been affected by me and my ramblings. i have facilitated as sixth grade students raised thousands and thousands of dollars in your name. and then walked five miles in your honor. and in honor of brothers and sisters they have lost that their parents only told them about once they heard about you.

all of those people who have thanked me or encouraged me, they have you to thank, little baby boy, not me.

i am honored that you chose me.

you weighed one pound and six ounces. you lived for about 600 seconds.

you changed me. you changed others. you have changed a little piece of the world in a way that i could never have dreamed.

i remember thinking, before meeting you, that once i had babies i wouldn't let that change me. you would fit into my life and i would go on living as i had always done, but with you by my side. i would go back to work, of course. i would still go out with my friends. i would continue living my life. you would fit into it.

but after you were here and then left so quickly, my whole focus changed. my life changed, so the life you would have had to fit into no longer existed. so once your brother was born, he met a whole different mom from the one you knew.

today i am consumed by motherhood. it is who i am. i do not mourn the loss of that other woman. or of her life. i do not feel the need to hold on to something that no longer is. this is me now. i am your mother. i am mason's mother. it's what i do. and it's what i do best. it's what i love to do. what i live to do.

so thank you again, baby boy. thank you for choosing me as your mother. i only hope that we can meet again in this lifetime. i hope you are still hanging around waiting to be held again in my arms. and know that if you are, if you choose to come back to me, you will meet a whole new mom but feel that same love again. only this time i'll be crying tears of happiness.