Letters to Andrew: 4th Birthday Edition

Just over a month before Andrew was born, we were sitting in a soccer stadium in downtown Chicago watching my cousin's game with my aunt and my cousin's girlfriend (now wife-- Benjamin went to the wedding in 2012). I remember telling her how nervous I was to give birth because it was scary and foreign and sounded, well, painful.

I vividly remember her telling me that no matter how much pain, in the end, we will get to take home the most wonderful gift ever when it's all over. Those words are burned in my memory, because that never happened. All the pain, none of the gain. {Well, the love during pregnancy and beyond is most assuredly a gain, but not without an immense amount of emotional pain that will never end.}

Not pain and then gain. How I wish that were so.

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Dear Andrew,

You are absolutely missed. Every single day of my life, I miss you. There will never be a birthday that we don't celebrate you, or a holiday, first day of school, soccer practice, park visit, family vacation that you go unmissed.

On your fourth birthday, I miss the preschool-aged boy you would be. I miss the boy who would be starting to read and getting excited for selecting his birthday party theme and blowing out those four candles tonight. I miss every bit of it.

Always Loving,
Mom, Dad, Benjamin & Claire.