Happy Birthday

yeah, so this day sucks.

I hate it every year,

I think maybe more by the year.

8 years old. Wow. How big would you be? Would you be more like Amos, Jakob or Keenan? Maybe you'd be like Tyler was before he died. Would you be tall or short? Big ears? Little ears? Like your hair longer or shorter, or just plain buzzed like Jake? Would it be dark or light? Curly or straight? Would you like bugs and frogs or cars or video games or music or books? These questions plague me, break my heart each and every year. There are a million more I could sit here and ask. Would that heart the other baby got have saved you if I hadn't taken you off of the support? Or would it have been a waste of a heart, just keeping you hangin on for a few more days. Or maybe you wouldn't have even made it through the transplant surgery. Maybe it would have gotten you home, by my birthday. Maybe you'd have been fine, or maybe something would have gone wrong, after I got you home, after EVERYONE and not just myself got attatched, 4 hours away from the doctors that would have known you and you'd have never had a chance here at home.

Maybe I should have made sure Amos and Tyler got to see you before you left Enterprise. Maybe it would have made Tyler feel better, more complete. Maybe he wouldn't have been so heartbroken those last few months of his life. Maybe it wouldn't have made a damn difference in the world.

Maybes are the killers, the ones that keep you up at night, the ones that take your breath away when you least expect it. Like Friday night, at the bar, with someone other than Trai in charge of the music for a few minutes. In that moment he chose to play the dance. I was from laughing and talking to crying, sobbing hysterically in the middle of a bar in 1/2 a second flat. Trai not really sure what was going on until I explained, that was THE funeral song. That was the song Bill said I could've warned him about. Hell, maybe I should have warned myself. To love that song so much, only to hate it later, hate it with a passion now, but every once in a while have to play it,to tear open that wound that I often should know better. Like a scab thats almost healed, so it hurts more, tears the skin and bleeds like hell. But every once in a while I, or some strange fluke of luck or some smell, sound or sight triggers it. Ripped off with a vengance.

Sometimes I think it made me stronger, sometimes I think it wwas all a waste. A waste of a life, a waste of my soul, a waste of alot of pain that never had to be gone through. Mom didn't need it, my dad didn't need to struggle with it, I surely never asked for it. It's a pain I wouldn't wish on anyone.

And where the hell were those friends of mine? Elijah, yeah, he had to convienently leave out of town for a job with Cody as I stood in the yard dressed for the funeral. And Gerald. Who the hell knows where he got off to. He went amiss about 2 weeks before Hunter was born, later coming back and giving me some lame excuse that I accepted. And how about Lisa, who couldn'tcome to me cause she had just "lost" a baby too. Because as I struggled to save my childs life she was 4 streets over having an abortion. Friends, yeah, gotta love them all.

Maybe the only person I can truly say was there was my mom. Kathy tried to be, but pregnant, Clay didn't want her around it. My dad wanted no part in it, no part in seeing him before he died,no part in seeing him after he died. No part of it period, because after all, you have to brace yourself for the worst, thats what he told me. No need to get attached. I ish it had been that easy. I wish that when I was 5 months pregnant and Dr. Banach had told me, I could have just cut that attachment off. But hell no, I had to be one of those save the world people, I TRULY believed I could save him, that there was no reason he couldn't just have his heart fixed or get a new one. Stupid I was at 23.

Those were the days though. The days that I thought the worst you got was a bad husband, and hell you just left him. I thought kids outlived parents, babies never died and medicine could save anyone, with any problem.

Even after I accepted that wasn't the case, then I wanted to know why. Hell I still want to know why. Whats the purpose in giving a mother a child that will never see the light of day? Whats the purpose in hours and hours in a waiting room, to be given good news, to having it taken back? Whats the point in pain that tears families apart, that damages people to the point that they are never the same again? Whats the point in spending the rest of my life, doubting choices I made and wondering why I had to make them in the first place?

Why do I live every year, dreading this day? Why do I have to? There should be presents and a birthday cake and excitement. Instead there are tears held inside, lots of hours, lots of days, losts of weeks, lots of years. And is it even reasonable to still be mourning a child I never knew on his birthday 8 years later? A child whose eyes I never saw, who I didn't get to truly hold touch and feel until he was gone? A child whose face I can't remember, because it was covered with tape and wires and tubes. A child who was in a drug induced coma, paralyzed his entire 4 days of life. A child that I don't know anything about, right down to his weight because 2 hospitals and a life flight crew all have different weights for him within a 12 hour period.

A child that never took a bottle, whose cry I never heard, eyes I never saw, never walked, talked, laughed, got his first tooth, played his first ball game, watched his first race with me, made me one of those cheesy mothers day presents at school, a toilet paper roll turkey or a really bad, really glittery kindergarten Christmas ornament. What's there to be attached to?

I'll tell you, it was the idea of him. The preperation for him, the anticipation of him. I felt him kick, I felt him move, he made me miserable for many months, from morning sickness to sitting on a nerve that made my hip have a constant twitch for the last 3 months of my pregnancy. I kind of knew him. In my mind. He was active, moving about for hours on end each day. He kicked and he kicked HARD. Just like any normal pregnancy, you get to know them, as they grow. ? I know he was more active at 2am than 8am. I know he was a night time baby. I know he made me crave Reeses cups and subway. I knew enough to be attached. I knew enough to love my child even without ever seing his eyes. And those that take issue with that, well, they can kiss my ass. Happy Birthday Hunter, I love you and miss you.