"I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always. As long as I'm  living, my baby you'll be."


We finally got Nico's urn and it's beautifully designed with black and gold. Yet I haven't been able to move him into it from the plastic temporary box urn. The thought of seeing my baby as nothing more than ashes is more than I can bear.  Realizing that he fits into a six inch box is just wrong. The last time I saw him was when the funeral home came to take him away at the hospital, and I don't want to see him like this.

I held my Nico for two days. Two very short days. Then a man from the funeral home came with a basket lined with a very sweet blanket to take my Nico away.  Putting him in that basket was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I knew I had to let them take him, but I just wanted to stay there, holding him forever. In those moments, I  understood those stories you hear on Law and Order or in creepy stories of a person who keeps their loved one in their home, long after they've passed. In that moment, I understood how a piece of you could snap and be completely unwilling to let go. Logic and my last piece of sanity, (that last piece was a thin thread that Ryan was holding on to, keeping that thread from breaking and keeping me from falling into an endless chasm) reminded me that I couldn't keep Nico, I couldn't take him home with me...at least not in that form. The only way to bring him home was to give him to them and have him cremated.

The more I think about it, the more horrified I am. Somebody put my sweet little baby's body into a fire and burned him until he was nothing but ashes.




When my brother and I were young, I remember a time that we were fighting and I ended up in the yard on my back and he knelt on my stomach, forcing the air from my lungs. I remember being shocked and confused and then scared at the lack of oxygen. It took what felt like several minutes before I could force air my into my body and breathe again.
That horrible inability to breathe strikes me at random throughout the day. Out of nowhere, my grief knocks me down and kneels on me, and I am as desperate for my Nico as I was for air. And I choke and sob as I try to breathe, but every breath is a terrible reminder that I am still here without him.