June

June was a hard month.  I dreaded the end of the month and beginning of July.  I had a particularly rough day when we went to the Children's Museum and saw all the horses out on display.

We had a very similar day one year ago, with Henry in tow.  We walked around to the different horses and then played at the museum.  I was in tears remembering that day and realizing it was one of Henry's final days.

I sat in this same chair a year ago, with Henry in my lap, as Hattie played.

I remembering struggling to hold up Henry with one arm while holding Hattie's hand to cross the street.  He was a large boy who couldn't hold himself up yet, but it was near impossible to fully support him with one arm.  I remember being a bit frustrated, but laughing at myself and just looking at my sweet boy in awe of his size.  He never whined or complained even though I was so near to dropping him.  I loved every minute with him.

Looking back I try to remember a time when I was super frustrated, or exhausted, or just had a terrible day as a mom.  It happens.  I know it happened several times with Baby Hattie.  But I can't remember any with Henry.  Our time together was so perfect.  I now realize what a blessing that was.

All days, except for one- his last day at home.  I hate so much that his last day at home was a rough one.  In fact, that last day, June 29, was the day I had my major breakdown (this year, 2016).  I've worked through a lot of my feelings of guilt, but they still resurface sometimes.  And June 29 is the day I regret the most.  I feel like at that point, things were still in my hands.  I could have taken him to the doctor sooner.  We went to Costco for goodness sake, we should've just gone to the ER.  I know, there was no way to know how serious it was.  I've had lots of doctors, specialists tell me this.  I had no reason to suspect Henry's heart was malfunctioning.  But all those feelings of fear and guilt rushed back and it was overwhelming.

But time marched on.  We continued into July- the days when Henry was in the hospital and all I could do was watch and wait and try to process everything the doctors were telling me.  Holding on to a thread of hope that would break a couple days later on July 2nd.  Kurt and I had to make the most impossible decision.  We had to let our son go.  But somehow we knew very clearly what to do, we knew that Henry was already gone.  He would never wake up, no matter how long we left him hooked up to those machines.  So we held our son.  We held him, we talked to him, we kissed him, we cried.  We held him into the next day.