The Last Three...

Today was the last day I held Alexander on the inside, three years ago.  It was this day, around 11pm, that an ultrasound showed his placenta detaching from my uterus.  The doctor had shook his head... Our little guy, who had beat the odds to get fully back in the womb after his little feet dangled beyond the cervix... Who had stayed put in spite of his amniotic sac breaking...  He was telling us that it was time to be born, both into this world and the next. 

There was a peace that I can't explain, once we realized that his time for this dual birth had come.  There were tears too, but the knowing what the road would hold helped.  Knowing what would need to happen... What we wanted for our son and ourselves and our families...  That knowledge was powerful and helpful.  Priests were called, prayers were said, miracles were asked for, preparations were made.  And, early the next morning, on the 23rd, Alexander came into our arms and passed quickly into the Otherworld.

I dont have anger any more about that.  I'd be lying if I said that my sadness has completely been replaced by peace and harmony about his life and death.  But there is peace.  With him, perhaps, more than Nicholas and Sophia.  Maybe it is because little Alex is my running buddy.  Perhaps it is because he was such a little bundle of peace himself.  I dont know.  But as I recite what I consider his mantra (below), the heaviness on my soul is lightened...  My lips turn up in a smile as I remember the pitter patter of him playing soccer with my bladder...  And I can take a breath and smell the sweetness of him. 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.