2 years...

I cannot believe it has been two years. 730 days. 17,520 hours. You lived for one of those hours.

Oh Nicholas... My sweet boy. Today is your second birthday, a birthday you wont physically celebrate with us here. Instead, there is a pain in my heart, a broken heart, a heart that burst open with a love I didnt even know existed when I looked down and saw you for the first time. I loved you before you were conceived, but when I first saw you... It was a love that I'd never even know existed.

I often thought about how it would be once you were born. How I would hold you and rock you in the rocking chair that held your daddy and your grandpa. How I would wrap you in the blanket your grandma made your daddy. How you'd wear a christening gown, with your sister, that she made with you two in mind. How I would sing you the songs and read you the books that my mom did to me. I knew you would look like your daddy, I knew it from the start, when we pointed to that first ultrasound image- that tiny peanut that was you- and said "Nicholas"... Peter Nicholas, IV... Your daddy's boy... My little boy. You'd look like him but you'd have my eyes. I deeply regret never being able to see you open those beautiful eyes, but it was worth it because I saw you smile instead. I saw your beautiful, tiny mouth curl into a smile. I saw you reach out and hold your daddy's finger. I saw you, my little boy. I gave birth to you. I held you. I will never forget those moments. They will never dull over time. They will never fade or be mitigated by your siblings. That will always be your time. You will always have a sacred space inside my heart.

Two years. A lifetime. Or not so much. Perhaps only 55 minutes is a lifetime. And even if that is the case, those 55 minutes can last forever. And, in my heart, they always will.

I love you, Nicholas. Thank you for choosing me, of all the women in the world, to be your mother. I miss you so much. But, more than anything, I love you.

We love you.