Dearest Sonne --
I am angry. I am sad. I am tired.
Four years have passed since you died in our arms and it feels like yesterday. Except that four years ago I knew what to do. I had a purpose.
Once we learned that your heart did not recover from your surgery I knew I had things to do.
With the help of the nurses I printed your hand prints and foot prints so we would always have an image to look at since we would never have a chance to hold them again, to play games about piggies going to the market, to teach you to count with them.
I picked up my phone and began calling family and friends to tell them the awful news. Many came to the hospital while you were still alive and while they were there for us, most, but not all, asked to see you and say goodbye. I led person after person in to see you. I was an ambassador with a terrible job that no one could ever want, but somehow I held my head high and proudly brought friends and family in to meet you and love you and bless you. Somehow I managed to be strong that day for everyone.
After we got home I remember calling my boss to tell him you were gone. He sent an incredibly thoughtful email to my colleagues. For the life of me I cannot figure out what I did with it (did I delete it?).
Why would I want to save it? Why would I want to read it years later?
Because I feel sorry for myself. Because I want to have my own personal pity party.
I want people to remember you without my having to remind them.
I want people to remember that you were a twin and not constantly send me links to twins singing songs from "Frozen".
I want people to not tell me the exciting news about a friend expecting twin girls and if they insist on telling me I want them to understand that my happiness for their friend is bittersweet.
I want people to not react to the news of children dying in a mass shooting by saying to me "It's so awful! They were only kids" or for my once thoughtful boss to so thoughtlessly say "I can't even imagine losing one of my kids" while watching coverage of that school shooting instead of focusing on a meeting. And when I leave saying, "I'm sorry. I need to leave" prior to breaking into tears, I don't want to be called "emotional" months later in my performance review.
I want people to remember that, while a celebrity's death might be sad, 86 is not "gone too soon". 109 days is gone too soon. Maybe you didn't change the world, but you changed mine. You changed me.
I want people to understand that all the awful happenings in the world do not mean shit to me right now. I'm sorry that children drowned trying to escape Syria. It is awful. I'm sorry that children die of cancer. It is awful. I'm sorry that all too often children are the victims of crime because they are innocent and trusting. It is awful.There are too many awful things in this world.
Like your death. It is awful. It was shitty four years ago and it remains just as shitty today.
Maybe the shock is finally wearing off.
Maybe Morgen processing your loss and verbalizing her feelings about it makes your loss more acute. Maybe her asking me nearly daily "Can you imagine if Sonne hadn't died and we were all playing together?" is forcing me to imagine that more.
Maybe the dreams recently where I woke to the sound of your crying and later to you whispering "Mommy" from next to the bed were simply too haunting to shake.
With the exception of two deaths, yours and your Opa Koerper's (who, at 52, was actually also gone too soon), my life is pretty fantastic.
But still, I'm the mother of three beautiful girls, one of whom will forever be a memory. The promise of who you were going to grow to be was stolen from us. It makes no sense and it isn't fair.
Maybe it's just sour grapes.
Whatever it may be, it will pass. It always does.
I love you, little-little. Always.
xoxo...Mommy.
