baby birthday

Hey Jude — Thinking of You

/ adelcambre / 2 Comments

Hi, Sweetheart.

Today was four months since we first brought you into this world in a most unconventional way.  Your little life was lived in such a strange place compared to most, but I refuse to believe it was any less significant.  You’re so very special, darling.

Today at church, Father David gave us a hand-woven blanket shawl made to comfort us when we are lonely for you.  We decided to get a paver stone for the church in memory of you, too.  I hope others will see it and wonder about the life of Jude Delcambre.  I often do.

Today, Lillianne pointed to a photo of you and your daddy that sits on our bookshelf, and she said Jude.  Your sister is so smart and special, darling.  It amazes me how delightful she is, and it hurts my heart so much to think of how special you and she would have been together.  Mommy doesn’t blame God nor is mommy upset with God, but mommy can’t help but wonder why….especially while she sees everyone else having babies and babies close in age and such.  That’s not to say Mommy isn’t happy for the other babies and families; it’s just to say that mommy feels sad because she misses you so very, very much.

I can’t help but think hard of you sometimes, Jude.  When I say hard, I mean that I think of you in the kind of way that makes me feel like I’m being vacuumed into a pit.  The depths of my pain and despair and loss of you are boundless.  I want to scream and cry and write and run and paint and hurt and float away for the misery that wells within.  There’s a depth of suffering that I know that I don’t know how I contain other than the hours in the day in which to feel and to have steam expire and I simply fall asleep on principle.  If It weren’t for that, I think I could go crazy for pain.

Of course, because i love you, and I know you want and deserve a well mommy, I don’t, and i won’t go crazy.  I’ll keep trying and I’ll keep hoping.  I’ll keep being good to daddy, and I’ll keep being good to Lillianne.  I’ll hold you in my heart.  I hope that we will have more siblings to know about you and to be impacted by you, sweetie.  I want you to know how special you are.  Even though I can’t hug you with my arms, I hug you every day in my heart, and you know it’s a big, tight squeeze.  I wish I could hug you with my arms and kiss you and feel your warmth and your smile beneath my cheek.  I wish I could hear your giggle.  I can’t even imagine it, but I imagine you love me as much as I love you.

Every time I see a red bird, I say your name, Jude; I say it out loud. Our neighbor told me that red birds were our loved ones coming from heaven to check on us.  I like to think that’s so, and if so, thank you for coming so often.  My baby boy, I need you, and I miss you, so thank you for the birds.  Thank you for the sun and the wind.  Thank you for being you, exactly as you are.  Wait for mommy and daddy in Heaven.  I love you and miss you.  Happy four month birthday, darling.  You’re my little world.

Hey Jude – “Would Be Birthday”

/ adelcambre / Leave a comment

Hi, Sweetheart. Today was February 10, 2015, which means that tomorrow is your “should-be” birthday. Today I spent the morning with your sister, I let her spend time with Emie and Aunt Ding Ding while I worked for a bit, then she and I napped, and then we did Mellow Milers with some close friends (their daughter turned 6 months today; she would have been your friend, darling).

 

I know it doesn’t sound like I had much downtime, and perhaps I didn’t. In my spare time, my thoughts were with you. I thought about how “normally” today, I would be savoring my last day with your sister as an “only” child because I knew that life would change beyond my comprehension once you arrived. I know it’s so silly, but I worried about her once we had you. Truthfully, I worried about both of you. Would you receive enough attention? Would she feel neglected and abandoned? What would happen to you when and if we had a third baby? Would I make mistakes relegating you to a life as the classic “middle child”? Would you have retentive issues as a result of that predicament?

 

Frivolously, I worried endlessly about those things –in the back of my mind; rarely at the forefront, that is. And then, on December 26, your birthday came early. I remember sitting in the hospital bed feeling utterly ridiculous for worrying that Lillianne would somehow be missing something when our attention wasn’t solely devoted to her. Never was it more poignant or obvious to me that what she will miss will always be you. She won’t even truly know it, but I will. I will always miss you, sweetheart.

 

It also occurred to me that I will never have a “middle child”. Even if you have two or three more siblings (let’s be realistic –it will probably be two), no one will be a “middle child.” As intuitively as I knew that something was going to happen to you (certainly, I never expected you would ascend immediately into heaven), I also recognize that I will never have a “middle child.” That concern –the one where I might ruin a baby by sandwiching it between two others—was turned over to God when you were. Like everything associated with losing you, it’s a bittersweet revelation.

 

So, tomorrow is not your birthday. I’m not packing a bag or getting one more night’s rest before the much-anticipated moment of meeting you. I’m not giving mom, your Emie, the gift I hoped to give her (a perfect new grandbaby, you) for her birthday, which you two would have shared. Your father and I aren’t cuddling Lillianne knowing how much life will change. We didn’t spend the last week hurriedly getting the essentials together for your arrival. We did none of that.

 

I refuse to say we “should” be doing those things because what happened, happened. You are in heaven by God’s own will for I know I did everything to keep you on Earth and with me. God knows how much I love you and how much I would have cared for you. So, I am placating all of this with the firm belief that what “should” have happened is what happened and that tomorrow, your would-be birthday is actually a day like any other day (other than the special feature of it being my mother’s birthday).

 

Tomorrow, I intend to spend time with your sister and visit your Emie and seek comfort from your father. I intend to spend time with our family, darling, and we will think about you. In my heart, I’ll be sad for love and longing of you, but I’ll trust that you want us to be happy together and to be “okay” (a subjective concept).

 

I miss you, Jude. If it’s not too much trouble, please feel free to visit me in my dreams and tell me how heaven is for you. It will surely be a while before I get to see you there. Please know how much your father and I love you and miss you. Please be with us in our hearts and help your daddy and me sustain in these turbulent times of what should be and what is.

 

I love you, Jude David Delcambre. Happy Would Be Birthday, darling angel.

IMG_7637

Hey Jude – “Should & Would”

/ adelcambre / Leave a comment

February 7, 2015

My darling Jude. Since Wednesday, I’ve been preoccupied with the fact that in one week February 11 should be your birthday. I’ve thought about all of the things I was anticipating for this time. I would be getting ready to take a leave from work. I would be preparing to spend some precious time alone with your sister. Your father would be taking his last drill weekend just before your birth. How exciting that we would miss the charade of Valentine’s Day this year because we would be indulging in the greatest love of all –our love for our baby boy, for you, sweetheart. We were so looking forward to doing nothing more than pouring out our love for you and devoting our time to loving you.

 

Yes, that is what we should be doing. Today, on February 7th, your sister turned 20 months. I should be feeling bittersweet sentiments because Lillianne is about to share the limelight with another little family star, the one who would become her best friend, who would beat up anyone who would speak ill of her and the one she would fight like a tiger for. Mommy should know, for that’s how mommy and Uncle Adam were. That’s how Mommy thought you and Lillianne would be. Jude, I feel like Lillianne lost the best friend she should have had when you went to heaven.

 

In my mind, I’ve replaced should with would because faith knows that what should have happened is what happened. God took you home on December 26. That is your birthday, not February 11. It would have been your day. You would have shared a birthday with your Emie, your grandmother.

 

As the days pass since your actual birthday (December 26), I feel like things should get easier (of course, I feel ashamed for this). The opposite is true. As days pass and we get closer to your should and would date, I find that the weight of missing your is crushing my heart like a raisin. I feel like I’m being sat upon a little harder every day and it gets harder and harder to breathe. I want to scream and to be buried all at the same time. I want to be cradled and beaten to within an inch of my life all in the same emotion. I have no recourse for expressing what I’m feeling. I just know that I miss you, and I shouldn’t have to, but I do. I have to for reasons that I may never know, and I both feel and accept the unfairness of that all at once.

 

I’ve already realized how amazing you are, Jude. Without taking a breath on this Earth, your little life has touched more people on behalf of Jesus than I ever will. In the interest of being noble and virtuous, I’m glad that I could somehow be a part of that. You are, I believe, both my and your father’s salvation; however, what a sacrifice you were.

 

Before we lost you, I thought about the sacrifice that God made for us, giving up his son. I readily acknowledged that I could never deliberately be so selfless as to give up my son for the sake of all mankind. (Sorry, mankind.) I would want there to be another way, somehow, whatever that way might be. The only thought I had that possibly changed that notion would be for the thought of your children and your children’s children; however, if you were sacrificed like Jesus, then how could your children and children’s children exist, yes?

 

Those were my thoughts, and I’d forgotten them until now. Of course, now my only hope is that you accomplish all that I would have selfishly chosen not for you as I would have greedily wanted you all to myself. I still do. If I woke up tomorrow and this were all a nightmare, I would be so happy I would be beside myself.

 

I know it’s not a nightmare. I know it’s real. I know that every day, morning comes, and I’m just a fat and flat woman. I have no baby growing inside of me anymore. I know that God determined that I shouldn’t, which is why that as your would-be birthday approaches, I’m not thinking about what should be happening, at least not in a way that is unhealthy. I’m only thinking of you and that I love you and I miss you.

 

I don’t intend to spend either of our lives speculating about what could or should or would be had you been here because what could and should and would happen did happen. I can only miss you. I won’t exhaust my time on Earth speculating about the alternative. I do want you to know how much I miss you and how much I want to kiss you and hold you and nurture you. You’re my darling ‘son’shine, and you and your sister make me happy though these skies are grey.

 

You never know, dear, how much I love you, so don’t take my sunshine away.