To My Son


When you are overcome with grief and pain, it’s so hard to understand why the world doesn’t stop. 

In those moments, it feels like it should. 
It feels like everyone should pause. 
Like everything should just wait. 
Just give you a second to catch your breath. 
But it doesn’t. Time moves forward. Life goes on. Even those closest to you, who feel the pain of your loss almost as deeply as you do, continue to move forward while you seem frozen where you are. 

In this moment, in this place, it feels like we are all taking a moment to breathe. To pause. To acknowledge the loss, so thank you all, sincerely, for coming.

Our son, Nathaniel Dean, Nate, will never be celebrated for his first step, his first birthday, his first words, getting his license, his first date, his wedding day, the birth of his first child. So today, we celebrate all the things that could have and would have been. We also celebrate the joy our sweet Nate brought us. He was prayed for and loved from the moment he came into being. His sisters and brothers could not wait to meet him, to hold him. His daddy and I could not wait to see his face, and hold his little hand. We never imagined how hard it would be. Seeing his tiny still little features. Holding his impossibly small little hand. He would have looked like his big sister Lily. But he would have had his big brother Alex’s profile. He had my long toes. As I held him and looked at him, I wondered who’s smile he would have, who’s eyes. Would he have had dimples like his brothers? I’ll never know.

All I wanted the day he was born was to hold him close and keep him warm. I wanted to keep him safe. I was so afraid of hurting him because he was so small. He was so tiny and helpless. That was the hardest day of my life. I couldn’t keep him warm and safe. I couldn’t protect him. And I couldn’t hurt him either. He was gone. He never heard his daddy and I say we loved him. But we did love him. So much.

We have experienced loss before. Beloved grandparents. Tim’s uncle. My childhood friend. We have even witnessed the loss of a child through family and friends. I always wondered on those occasions, how the parents survived it. 

How did they live through losing their child? 

I thought, “that’s something I could never do, something I could never endure.” 

Even now, after holding my sweet baby, and then watching him be carried away from me, and knowing I will never see his sweet face again on this earth, I don’t know how to survive it. I don’t know how you go on. I can’t answer that question. Because I’m still trying.

But I know this: even though it hurts, I speak his name. Even though it breaks me every single time, I look at his pictures. Even though I don’t know why we lost him, or what God is doing with this, I praise Him and thank Him for Nate. For our sweet son. Because he IS our son. He was alive. He mattered. He was a blessing. He had a purpose.


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