Zachary is doing so good, and I am falling in love with him more and more each day. I didn't realize how strong a mother's love truly can be. When I watch him next to me, the love I feel for him almost brings tears to my eyes. My heart is so full of joy and love.
Unfortunately, along with that comes guilt. I feel guilty that Zachary is here in my arms, and I am able to love on him in a way that I was unable to with Jonathan. I almost feel like I'm cheating on Jonathan in a way.
Up until Zachary's delivery, I felt like I was on a track. In my mind, I picture my old high school's track. With Jonathan, I completed the track once (pregnancy). But life ended, and I stayed in repeat. I continued another lap on the track with our miscarriage. And then I did another lap during Zachary's pregnancy. All I had known were pregnancies and loss and laps around the track. When I finally delivered Zachary, I broke free of the track and continued down a road. A new road that I never experienced.
There are so many new experiences I am having with Zac that I never got to do with Jonathan. Instead of looping around the track for another time, I now have this little person that keeps hitting different milestones that solidifies the passing of time from Jonathan. I find myself playing the "what-if" game a lot more with Jonathan that I did before. Zachary is a new way to track the time that has passed without Jonathan.
By leaving the track and continuing with Zac, it feels like this momma is leaving her Jonathan behind. ...that she is moving on with her life without her first born.
That makes me feel guilty. It makes me feel like a bad mom to Jonathan.
That's why it's so complicated. The intertwining of grief, sadness, love and joy is so messy.
I'm a big numbers and date person, so all throughout the year I remember the odd days of when this or that happened. This also applies when I was pregnant with Jonathan. December is always a fun month because this is when we learned of his diagnosis -- December 9th to be exact. You know what, I didn't realized it was December 9th until it was around 8pm that night. Perhaps this is a part of our journey of healing, but it hurt my heart that I forgot. It felt like somehow I forgot Jonathan...even though I think of him many times throughout each day.
One of my biggest fears is that people with forget Jonathan. That people will think that I am "fixed" now that I have Zachary. This isn't the case at all.
As twisted as it is, the pain of Jonathan's story connects me to him. There were moments of joy and love with him, but the main thing was pain and sadness. By forgetting the 9th, I felt like part of me had moved on with my life with Zachary, and I left Jonathan behind.
Like I left him back on the track.
