I’m a little late this month. But I think Maddox would forgive me.

Dear Maddox,

By now, you would be 5 months old, almost half a year. Time no longer feels like something measurable, but rather as this odd numerical value to the time I have been without you.

You would have loved today. Your dad and I, along with a bunch of your extended family, did the Phoenix Children’s Hospital 5k as team MJ Beefcake. If you were here, you would have gotten a free ride in that fancy running stroller we got from everyone in BTB.

Your probably would have slept the whole time. But everyone would have been coming up to the stroller to tell us how handsome you are.

Today was a good day. But even good days are hard.

We spent the morning with so many amazing people that came out just to honor you, which felt amazing. Until I stopped to think about why everyone needed to come honor you in the first place.

I still feel so cheated. Only getting 13 days with the most perfect person I have ever known. I still feel like I don’t understand, like my life isn’t really mine, but instead, some bad dream I can’t wake up from.

And I feel so sad that you can’t be here to see how many people love you. It’s insane.

The people who met you are different because of you. Every. Single. One. You are more powerful than you could ever know.

By now you would be rolling over, sitting up, getting ready to call and talking nonstop. Although none of it would probably make any sense yet. But you’re my kid so the babbling would definitely be happening.

I would tell your dad that everything you say means “mom is my favorite”. And I’d probably be right.

You’d have lots of friends at school and you’d probably be excited to get rid of us and hang out with the other babies when we dropped you off every day. I imagine I would still cry every time I had to leave you.

Because being without you is the worst thing that has ever happened in my life.

I imagine by now, I would be looking for every opportunity to use you as a baby model at work so you could be famous. Because we love attention in this family. Plus, you were so frickin cute.

You would meet more people that were infatuated with you than you’d know what to do with. And you would be asking me (eventually) why you have like 100 aunts and uncles and when you can have 100 siblings, too.

I’d tell you, hell no, kid. Ain’t happening.

One day, I would explain to you that there are two types of family: the family you are born into and the family you create. And that, if you’re really lucky, you end up with an entire extended family you could never live without.

This year on your 5 month birthday, your aunt Andi would have turned 40. Although you will always be my greatest loss, Andi was my first great loss.

I would tell you stories about how we were so similar, both kids at heart and both with big hearts we wore on our sleeves. I would tell you that losing your best friend is hard and that I will miss her until the day I die.

I’d tell you to hug your aunt Bethy extra tight because losing a sister is even harder than losing a friend. And I would tell you how grateful I was that we got to take you home because I could never get through losing you.

But life is ironic that way. We say we could never do something when, in reality, we don’t get the luxury of deciding. Life decides for us and we can either give up or put one foot in front of the other.

You opened my heart in a way I never knew was possible. And because of you, I can’t give up so my only option is to keep going.

I would give you an extra squeeze and soak in how lucky I am to be your mom. And even though I can’t give you that extra squeeze, there feeling of gratitude for being your mom stays true.

You are still my world, Maddox. Here or not.

I haven’t truly believed in heaven for a long time. But I know if I’m wrong and it does exist, your aunt Andi is taking the most amazing care of you up there.

I miss you both every day.

Sometimes I’m just sitting there and all of the sudden I miss Maddox so much it feels like my heart stops and the world freezes. I will go from feeling my new normal (which is still weird AF) to the overwhelming aching of missing him in the blink of an eye.

Today I was sitting in a waiting room and one second I was fine. The next I was wiping back tears, wondering if I’m going to be able to pull myself together or if I’ll have to leave. It’s all so unpredictable.

It’s as though for years I’ve taken the same roads every day like clockwork and then, suddenly, all of them are closed and I have to discover a new route, a new way to do everything in my life that once felt normal and easy.

Nothing feels easy now. Four months have passed since Maddox was here with us and I still wake up every single day feeling like my heart is no longer whole.

Anyway, I’ve talked a lot lately about how I’m feeling. And that’s cool, but it’s time for something (only slightly) different.

Today, I wanted to share what Steve and I are doing to cope. I know we’re not the only ones who have been in this situation or any insanely tough, life-changing situation. When we first lost Maddox, all I could think is

How does anyone go on after this? How am I going to do this?

I lean on my people.

At Maddox’s celebration of life, my mom spoke. She reiterated that question I had asked her no less than 20 times. She said, “You are going to continue to put one foot in front of the other and lean on your community.” And she was right.

For the first time in my life, I’ve let go of worrying about being a burden and started being honest about how I’m feeling. Maybe not with everyone, but I have a really great group of people I know I can share with anytime. And I unapologetically let them be there for me.

Because I definitely do not have everything together right now. And that’s okay.

I lift heavy things.

I get up every day and go to the gym. Sometimes I have a terrible night and I go in the next morning on 4 hours of sleep with my eyes still red and puffy feeling too weak to lift the bar, let alone workout.

But I show up and I see my people and I do the best I can. And ya know what? By the end of the workout, I always feel better than when I came in. Even if it’s just a little bit.

For me, physical strength translates into emotional and mental strength. The more I can achieve physically, the more I feel like I can take on whatever life gives me.

Right now, it’s hard to see any real progress in my life. Honestly, I feel like I’m in a constant state of reverse, waking up every day as a less awesome version of myself.

But in my workouts? I am the strongest I’ve ever been. Like, seriously, ever.

And I had major surgery just 4 1/2 months ago. And before that, I gave Maddox a free ride for almost a year. The fact that I am already not just back to where I was before but better – it’s pretty damn amazing.

Now my endurance and cardio are another story… But, one thing at a time.

I’ve got a good thing going at work.

Seriously. I have the most incredible support system there.

I have 3 amazing friends that I know will drop everything in their work day to go for a walk and listen when I’m down or send me dachshund videos or knock on the bathroom door and follow me in if I go in there to cry.

Getting out of the house and going into the office every morning gives me purpose. It keeps me busy and gives me something tangible to focus on rather than dwelling on how I’m feeling.

I 100% would not be able to do it without my girls, but going in and seeing them every day and being able to be productive makes an incredible difference in how I’m feeling.

I’m not messin’ around with this whole mental health thing.

I’m seeing an amazing psychologist.

Listen, I am not above admitting when I’m out of my element and I need help. I am literally in the middle of what has to be the hardest thing I will ever go through in my life. I have no fucking clue what I’m doing here.

Having a place to talk it out is great, but more importantly, I have someone to give my achievable goals and things I can work on to help me get through my grief. It’s not like if I just sit here and don’t put in the work I will magically feel better one day. Healing is hard work and I have to put in the effort every single day if I want to see a difference.

We’re prioritizing our marriage.

Remember when I said I was going to talk about both me and Steve and then talked only about myself for paragraphs on end? Yeah….clearly I’m excellent at this whole being a couple thing.

Anyway.

One of my biggest fears after we lost Maddox is that I would lose Steve, too. The statistics don’t look so good for couples who go through such a profound loss. I knew immediately that if we were going to make it, we’d have to fight every single day.

When I got pregnant with Maddox, Steve and I were in the absolute best place we had ever been in our relationship. Throughout my pregnancy, our relationship only got better and better. And the moment I saw Steve fully become Maddox’s dad, I felt my love for him more deeply than I even knew was possible.

Real talk:

We went through a time after we lost Maddox that our relationship felt kind of shitty. We were both irritable all the time and often took it out on each other. We were each probably the worst versions of ourselves, which made us both less than awesome partners.

But we just continued to talk about it. To touch base and assess where we were and if we thought we needed additional help for our marriage. We agreed that if things didn’t improve, we would find a couples counselor in addition to our personal ones.

And ya know what? We got through it and figured out how to be there for each other. We’re constantly working on how to listen and help each other when we have completely opposite coping strategies.

I spend my time doing as much as I can, trying to stay as busy as possible and, probably, avoiding. He takes time when he needs it but sometimes disconnects so much that it’s not healthy either.

We continue to challenge each other and push each other to slow down (me) or get the fuck out of the house (Steve). Sometimes it’s annoying (like when I’m not the one doing the pushing), but honestly, I would not be anywhere near okay if I didn’t have him.

Then there’s that whole writing thing.

Having this space to share my feelings has been incredibly therapeutic. I kinda figured after the initial week or so anyone reading would get bored and go back to their normal life.

I mean, how much grief can one person read about?

And honestly, I didn’t expect anyone to read these anyway. I haven’t kept up on this blog for over a year. And, really, anyone reading wasn’t the point. The writing was just something I felt the need to do for myself.

But I have to say, as a person who loves feeling loved, it’s felt pretty damn amazing to not only share the darkest pieces of my heart but to receive so much love and kindness.

There is good in the world. And you people are it.

Dear Maddox,

Yesterday you would have turned 4 months old. You would be smiling at people, holding your head up on your own, putting everything you touch into your mouth and starting to babble. You would start to recognize people and respond to affection. You would be receiving so much love from all the people who wanted you here with us so badly.

It’s hard to believe a third of a year has passed. Soon, it will be fall – well not really in Phoenix, but in some parts of the world – and your dad and I will have gone an entire season without you here. Sometimes it’s still so hard to believe that this is our life now.

I’d been dreaming of you and waiting for you for a very long time. I never imagined I’d be left in this world without you. It feels like it can’t be real, like one day I will wake up and this will all have been a bad dream. It feels like the pain is too big to be real.

They say that time is what heals us. Not the specific us but the universal us.

I keep waiting for that to be true. I try so hard to keep up the appearance of being “okay” (whatever the fuck that means right now), but the truth is being here without you only seems to get harder.

This month has been particularly hard. I’m feeling so much anger, an emotion I’m not used to. At all. My version of angry usually lasts about 10 minutes and then I just end up crying because, in reality, my feelings were just hurt.

This is different.

A lot of it is directed toward our circumstance, the fact that shit like this can even happen. And that it happened to us. But then there is the rest of the world. I watch myself losing it over things I would normally be able to ignore.

I’ve come to realize that not all of the attention we’ve received in your absence has been authentic. At first, hundreds of Facebook “likes” and dozens of comments made me feel less alone, like the world cared what was going on in our family. But I’ve realized that, so much of it is genuine, some of it is not.

I’ve started to feel like a reality TV show. Like one of those dramatic programs you watch, not wanting the person to fall apart, but waiting to find out what comes next. What will the broken mother who lost her baby do next?

This part I understand. I kind of knew this would happen. But what has shaken me to my core is seeing people go from watching what comes next to scrutinizing our every move, questioning our character and making assumptions they have no business making.

It’s as if some people expect you to sit in your house mourning for…I don’t know how long. When is it acceptable for me to go on a trip? To get a tattoo? To try to appear normal?

I’m angry that people would rather watch us be miserable than support us as we attempt to rebuild our lives. I’m angry that some people don’t stop being assholes just because your life falls apart.

And I’m really fucking angry that my dad hasn’t spoken to me since we lost you. But that is a bigger story for another day.

The anger feels overwhelming. Like that quick sand that kills Atreyu in The Neverending Story, sucking me in and taking over until it’s consumed everything that I am.

I know this is a stage of the grieving process and that it will pass. But that doesn’t make it any easier.

Sometimes I wonder what I would be doing in this exact moment if things had turned out differently. If we had brought you home.

I was so ready for my life to change and no longer be about me. I was ready for vomit in my hair, sleepless nights, a very scant social life. I don’t know what we’d be doing right now if you were here. Maybe you’d be having a terrible day and having an insane screaming crying fit.

You know what? That would be fucking awesome.

I mean, I know it wouldn’t. Not in the moment. But it would be so worth it to have had these 4 months with you.

It breaks my heart that I will never know what life with you really would have been like. Because no one else will ever be you.

I like to imagine what our life would have been like as if you were perfect. Because you were. You never had the opportunity to make a mistake or hurt anyone else. And because you were robbed of those opportunities, I will always get to remember you perfectly.

Before meeting you, I never fully understood the idea of that kind of purity and perfection. But you have changed everything I thought I knew about the world. In more ways than I could ever express.

In the Jewish tradition, within the first year after losing a loved one, there is typically a ceremony where the headstone is placed called an unveiling. Now, I am not a religious person. However, the I have always loved celebrating my culture and customs.

On Maddox’s 3 month birthday, Steve and I went to visit him. His headstone wasn’t supposed to arrive for another week so it was a nice(?) surprise to show up and see his spot finally complete. Visiting him and seeing the bare patch of ground that had so recently been dug up for him…it was just too much for me. I needed him to have a real spot that is only his. A home.

My mom had mentioned wanting to do an unveiling once his headstone arrived. I was worried we wouldn’t be able to do it before my brother left for school, but everything worked out and, two weeks ago, we had a very small, non-religious unveiling for Maddox.

Another Jewish tradition is bringing a rock to leave on the headstone. You’re supposed to set the rock down with your left hand (not sure why the left – I’m actually pretty terrible about knowing most of these customs) to let your loved one know you were there. My mom brought extra rocks so that everyone who came to be with us on this day could leave one.

If I believed in any sort of life after death, I know that Maddox would be feeling so much love. I truly believe that there has never been a human alive more loved than that kid. And even though I don’t truly believe he can feel the love that continues to surround him (I wish I believed in that so badly, but that is a topic for another time), Steve and I feel it. And right now, we need it so, so badly.

There’s no way to sugar coat it: this was a hard day. I felt a particularly sharp, unconsolable type of broken, worse than how I remember feeling when Maddox first passed. I couldn’t figure out why until Steve mentioned that this whole chapter is now kind of…finished. Everything is finalized. The rest of the world keeps moving. But my world still feels stopped, as if my car broke down in the middle of the freeway and everyone continues to zoom by around me, unable to see that I’m stuck there, broken.

But! It was also an incredible day. In the moments of the deepest sadness, I am continuously reminded of the love surround Maddox, Steve and me. How insanely lucky to have so many people who will drop everything to be there to do something no one really wants to do. Nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks I want to go to the cemetery today! But still, the people I love have faced the fear and darkness that comes with this process and shown unconditional love and support.

I am overwhelmed by feelings on both ends of the spectrum of what did I do to deserve this? To deserve losing my son, to deserve such an incredible support system. I don’t know. I feel humbled by the incredible outpouring of kindness my family has received, while simultaneously stunned by how truly unfair life can be.

Since this day, I’ve taken a couple more of my closest friends to visit Maddox. Having the people I love want to continue to be a part of his life even though he’s gone is a feeling I will never be able to describe. Seeing people truly love your baby instinctively strengthens you love for them. Seeing people love your baby who is no longer with you…there are no words for that type of love and gratitude.