Everything’s Different

Dear Carter, From the moment your dad and I started talking about trying to have another baby, I had this incredible need for everything to be different. I said it a hundred times and it directed every choice we’ve made. We chose different prenatal care, opting for a more medicalized model with an OB practice.…

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Just call me Chinook

Dear Carter, Snowplow parents clear away all the obstacles for their kids. Tiger parents place insane demands on theirs. Absent parents are…absent. And then there’s me, the dictionary definition of a helicopter parent. Yep, just like a helicopter, I hover close, circling and looping until I run out of gas. I didn’t picture myself as…

She bang

Dear Carter, Your sister is a FORCE. You know this, you’ve met her. She is fiery and intense and I cant wait to see how she’ll change the world. She’s already changed mine. I wanted to write down her birth story…there’s no way I could ever forget it, but still — for posterity’s sake. I’d…

My angel sent a rainbow

Dear Carter, When I was a  teenager, my favorite band was the Beatles. My best best friend Stephanie and I would listen to their records nonstop until we had all their songs memorized. I had posters on my ceiling that we would just gaze at while lying in my four-post bed. I don’t listen to…

Two years of lessons: a poem

I may never know why you had to leave, but I know why you came: to teach me the depth of LOVE that a heart can feel, to help me find the STRENGTH of spirit I didn’t know I had, to show me just how bright JOY makes all the colors, to nurture EMPATHY for…

Confirmation

*Disclaimer: This post discusses mediumship and spirituality outside of traditional Christianity. If you are offended, please stop reading now.* Dear Carter, Hey baby boy! It’s been a long time since I wrote to you. I started a few times, but for some reason the letters never quite took off. But I’ve recently had a few…

Parenting in the aftermath

Dear Carter, Yesterday I found out the paradox of parenting after your baby dies. Your dad was working on teaching your brother how to ride a bike and your sister went outside to hang out, but they were nowhere in sight. She came back inside and asked me “Where’d they go?”, and I could tell…

What I did for love

Dear Carter, A year ago today, Daddy and I made the excruciatingly and agonizingly painful decision to  turn off the machines that were keeping you alive. I’ve wondered so many times over the last year if it was the right thing to do. If it was the best decision we could have made. If we…

525,600 Minutes

Dear Carter, A year has passed since The Day.  The day a phone call shattered my innocence and ripped out my heart. Somehow the world has kept turning. Somehow the sun still rises and sets. Somehow I’m still breathing even though you’re not. I’ve fallen apart about a hundred times today as the flashbacks crashed…

Mothering from the gray

Dear Carter, It’s Mother’s Day and I find myself in a weird gray area, a little stuck and lot confused. I guess it’s because I don’t really feel like a mother. I know that I am, but knowing and feeling are two entirely separate things. I got some Mother’s Day texts, cards, and wishes and didn’t know how…