Two Mothers, One Journey: Baby Nay,

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Baby Nay,

Okay another day. Another morning. And this one is hard. I am going to write you this letter and then I am going to get some work done. I have been slack and things are falling behind.
I love you so much. Today I can cry. It is all I can do today. You should be here with me. In my arms. I should be complaining that you won't go to sleep. I should be walking around jiggling you. You should be smiliing all the time now. We should have already had your portrait done now. Instead I took the girls last Saturday to have theirs made and held up a picture of you in it. That is the only way you will be in our family portraits. The girls will get older. We will all age and you will be Forever Baby Nay in the picture.
We joked that that would be your nickname always. You would be thirty years old and we would call you Baby Nay. But you won't ever be thirty. You will now always be Baby Nay.
Forever my angel. I am so lonely today. The void is so large. I need to kiss you again and smell you. I need you to spit up on me. You were a champion spitter upper.
Christmas is coming. Without you. I sponsored a baby on the angel tree. A little girl. It is not the same.
I want to take your picture with Santa Claus. I want to see you stare at the lights. Instead I put off putting up the tree. I am going to do it this weekend though. The girls need that. I probably do too.
My angel Baby Nay. I will hold you close today. A little too close. I love you always. I miss you.
Please know Baby girl how I feel. Daddy said last night he can see a supreme being holding your hands while you take your first steps. I have been closing my eyes and picturing that every since.
I wish I could dream about you. I wish I would have one of those dreams where you come to me and tell me it is all going to be okay.
I wish I could hold you in my dreams and not just my daydreams. I wish I had that sign. See I need a big obvious sign though, not a little one. I need something to literally whack me in the head and say hey, I am with you. At least today I do.
But I do know that I am with you. A huge part of me went to Heaven with you. Somewhere out there a part of me is holding you close.
For now I guess that will have to be comfort enough.

Love Always,
Mommy

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About Jennell

My name is Jennell. I am a chronically ADD mother of four, long term shacking up with the man of my dreams (really ten years in and I still love the way he smells), have some furbabies and four babies of my own. My oldest daughter Kirsten is 13 (going on twenty one!). Kinsley is my second daughter and the sweetest 6 year old ever! Teague is my three year old son. I also have a daughter, Naylen, who would be five years old now. We lost her to SIDS in 2006.
I am not the kind of person who can find the tape and the last pair of scissors I located I tripped over. I have never made it home from the grocery without the bread getting squished. I love to make lists I never complete, chalkboard paint addict, future Country Living feature (I live in a decrepit old, drafty house that I am s...l...o...w...l...y... remodeling, big fan of run on sentences and fragments, have poor punctuation and am pretty repetitive, left handed, live in the South and hate sweet tea (yes I am a traitor), and when I follow politics I am a liberal Democrat with enough parental sense to wish I was a Republican.
I am starting school to pursue my nursing degree. I hope to use my career platform to share safe sleep strategies more successfully. I currently run a small non-profit called Naylen's Hope. We offer baby beds for families in need of one and safe sleep seminars for interested groups.

About Stacey

My name is Stacey and I live in Maine with my wonderful husband Jason, for three years. I have three children Michaela who is a hormonal 13 year old and my son Nick who is a mathematical wizard. I also have another baby Jaleel who was born May 18, 2006 and tragically died June 13, 2006 at 26 days old due to a bed sharing accident.

It has been over five years since my son died and now I educate people on safe sleep and in Jan I will be going to school to work towards my MSW (Masters in social work). I love educating the public on safe sleep and want to do it as my career.

Two Journeys...A Common Path

This is two stories really. Two different women from different places, in different life situations who ended up living through the same nightmare of child loss. This is a compilation of the private journal writings from two different women as they struggled through the loss of their infant children. Naylen and Jaleel were both born and died in 2006. Almost immediately we, Jennell and Stacey, began writing, chronicling our grief journey. We didn't know each other when we lost our children. We met later, crossing paths because of our shared loss. We have both decided to share our private writings in hopes that other people grieving can see that some aspects of grief are universal. Perhaps you can identify with something from our journeys. There is comfort in community and with grief there is nothing off limits, no uncharted territory, and anything goes.