What Happens In Four Years...

Four years ago, I was BEYOND ready to give birth.  Not that I'd not enjoyed being pregnant or wasn't BEYOND grateful to be so, but because my 'little turkey' was overdue already and the symptoms of preeclampsia we weren't aware of were taking their toll.

You can see...I was ready.

But I was thankful.  So, so, so thankful.  An excerpt from that night's post:

"There are so many things I have to be thankful for this year...even as I sit waiting for Matthew to make his debut, and am admittedly a little nervous about what labor is going be like, I am thankful that I have had the blessing of pregnancy--something I basically thought was never going to happen. Mom and I were talking last night about how different this time of year is than we thought it would be. We never in our wildest dreams imagined that we wouldn't have a little baby girl eating her first Thanksgiving dinner with us and we certainly didn't imagine that we would be waiting for a chubby-cheeked little baby boy to decide he was going to come out after all.

Again, Lord, thank you for your many, many blessings."

How could I ever, ever have known that not only would I not have a little baby girl eating her first Thanksgiving dinner with us, but the following year would not include the chubby-cheeked little baby boy who was born just two days later?

I honestly do not know how four years has gone by.  I look at Luke and can't believe that he's nearly THREE...but I remember the details of these days four years ago so.vividly.

I remember with a heaving chest and a knot in my throat that I just can't seem to swallow.

That night, laughing about how Matthew had already outgrown an outfit and he wasn't even born yet, I decided to look and see if his birthday could ever be Thanksgiving Day.  I looked at years and years ahead and basically figured out that unless Matthew was born that day or the next, he'd never have a birthday on Thanksgiving.  I'd thought that was kind of good and kind of sad...good that he'd never have to share his special day but sad because if there was ever anything in the whole.entire.world that we in our family would be thankful for, it would certainly be John Matthew Ennis!!!!

Whether I just misfigured or was just suffering pregnancy brain, I was wrong!  Matthew's birthday IS Thanksgiving this year.

It's hitting me very sharply.  Maybe because I never thought it would actually be on Thanksgiving Day, and after he passed, I was SO glad I'd never have sit a table recounting my blessings as I should have been helping my little boy blow out birthday candles.  Maybe because it reminds me of how naive I was...how silly I was figuring out things about his birth when I should have just been on my knees 24-7 praying I got to bring him home and raise him.

Maybe it's just because no matter how much time passes, I will never not miss him.  Never not ache for him and wonder what life would be like with him and his brothers.  Never not wish that it was different and that he'd lived.

Never.

So, what happens in four years?  Nothing and everything.

Because while my heart aches particularly deeper this year, it is also filled with so much joy and gratitude.  There is this little boy...a precocious two-year old who proudly tells everybody that he's a 'free-nager' (threenager; he overheard me talking with a friend, little stinker!)...who calls me Mama and tells me he loves me "the whole world" and calls his Batman slippers his 'Datman slip-flops'; is a hilarious prankster and actually ate bok choy for dinner the other night...he makes me smile and he fills every.single.day with fun and laughter.

My heart is overwhelmed with Thanksgiving for his life and his place in our family.  Just overwhelmed.