The Balance of 15 Weeks and 2 Days

We had you for 15 weeks and 2 days, and tomorrow we will have lost you for 15 weeks and 2 days.
From the minute we lost you we found it hard to believe that we could keep going on, keep living without you.  But each day has stacked up, one on top of the other, this precarious pile of days that might topple at any second, because we find it hard to keep the days and the emotions of them all balanced 24 hours a day.  It takes a lot of energy to keep them upright, keep them in order.
That day that we dreaded, it has arrived.  By tomorrow we will have lost you the same amount of time that we had you.  That will be hard to cope with.  To think of.  It feels like a new 'era' in our new lives of 'Missing you'. 
By Monday, the pile of days that we hold in our hands will be outbalanced, becoming too much to hold onto.  We will still be counting, but the days will be too many to hold in our hands.  Instead we will be stacking them in piles on the floor, the 'missing you' days will just keep piling up, forever.

This is the new part called acceptance.  We cannot change what happened to you, as much as we cry for it.  We cannot bring you back, as much as we've begged for it.  We cannot hold you in our arms, as much as we yearn for it.
Because 15 weeks and 2 days later, we will have lost you as long as we had you. 

We dreaded each passing day when you left us, we hated the end of the day before, and the start of a new one without you.
We still feel that, nothing has changed. 
That isn't the truth, we are a little more composed now, but the 'missing you' is more. 
We are learning to wear our masks for longer in a day, we are learning to hold them up and not let them fall to the floor as often.  But the 'missing you' is definitely more.  We still cry, we still feel your loss, but most times this is in private now, just Dad and Mum, together, without you.

We feel like it has been less time than 15 weeks and 2 days since we lost you, but the empty feeling in our arms feels like more, the 'missing you' is more.
We still struggle to get through a day and not remember how things were for you.  We still find it hard when we're sitting together and feel that missing piece all around us, the piece that is you, the gap that no-one else could ever fill.  Will ever fill.
It is like a landfill space in our hearts, we walk around it, and peer over the edge of it, but the gap is enormous and we cry with the fear of how big it is.
We know that gap will never fill, we will be walking around it forever, we may fall into it at any time.

We now look at our loss, our life without you, almost like we're robots.
We go through the motions of living, we get up and get dressed (most days), and we try and get through a day, each day, every day.
We try and smile, this makes others feel more comfortable around us.  We've discovered this.
But if people looked close into our eyes, really looked, our smile never reaches there anymore.
If they hear our laughter, it is surface laughter, not the big deep belly laughs like we used to have.
People will hear us chat about other things, because we are learning not to make every conversation about you, as hard as that is, because the 'missing you' is massive and we tiptoe round the edges of it all the time.  But when chatting about other things, most times our thinking brains are focused on you.  You are always there with us, even if the conversations are different.

15 weeks and 2 days we had you in our lives.  Those precious days that we had you, held you close, protected you and loved you.
Now we have 15 weeks and 2 days of missing you, precious days that we hold onto, remember holding you close, protect your memory, and we still love you just as much but maybe more, because we miss you.

We still don't like talking about you in past tense, we still hate hearing your name spoken in past tense. You will always be ours, you will always be in our hearts, you will never be our past because you are with us all the time.

We love you bubba, we just do.
The days will continue to stack up, but we will always love and miss you just the same.

our precious boy. <3