For me, not on the book. I am not ready for FB merry Christmas status's yet, but I am not going to post on there some anti-happiness status. I am not going to be that guy. I would rather spread my message of Christmas disgust on here. I want people to have a merry Christmas, I am just not ready to have a merry Christmas with them.
We went to midnight mass last night hoping to hear a clear message. It was like any other mass except longer. The whole time I kept looking at the families and the fathers with their children. Now there was only one baby in the church (it was Midnight, I do not now why that baby was there in the first place) so most of the kids were older. But sure enough the father was there with the family. I hated seeing that, seeing a family together spending time. I used to spend time with my family every Christmas Eve, it was our alone time together to spend as just ourselves. After my brother left for the Air Force I continued to come home, never missing Christmas Eve. There was always a feeling of love and togetherness with us. I realized last night that there will always be someone missing on Christmas Eve. When it is our night as a family we will be spending it one less. Christmas will always have a different meaning for us, one we wanted to have come true so bad.
Marcellus was suppose to be home by Christmas. Sure it was a goal set by the doctor and not a go home date by any means but it resembled something tangible to us. Christmas was an event to the whole world, a time of receiving gifts you waited all year to have. We waited for Marcellus, longer than a year, to my Wife, 9 years. When my Wife and I decided to start for a baby it was about a year ago we decided to prepare for it. I started my waiting then. It seems so long ago. After he died Christmas became just another date on the calendar that reminds us that we travel through time farther away from the wonderfully short time he was alive with us. Those words of the doctor still echo through my head, that he could be home by now. No more monitors, just my wife, my dog, and most importantly my tiny yet feisty son. He would be so big now, compared to his birth. We would know so much about him. We would be able to hear him cry without a feeding tube in his mouth. We would know his ques and his wants and his rhythm from being in the NICU. Each day would be a gift, each day would represent our family as a whole. Each day would be better than the last.
But he is not here. I do not know his ques, his wants, what his eye color is, what his cry sounds like, what his squeaky laughter would sound like, what his butt looks like, none of that. I know him dead, I know what he looked like laying in a casket smelling of horrible chemicals. I know what his gravesite looks like. I know what my Wife's cry sounds like. I know what my cry sounds like, I know how I handle myself in complete despair and grief. I have been longing for him the last couple days. Just bitter yearning to hold him, to see him, to be his father. I just want to close my eyes really tight and hope he would appear. I just want to run to the hospital to see if he is there. I miss him so much, I just want him with me. Nothing else matters in my life now, my son is dead, he is not coming home for Christmas. I am crumbling inside, reaching for memories of him that fade as the time goes by. Each fading memory takes a piece of my heart as its companion. The first Christmas without him is not going to be a good one. The second will not be a good one. The third will not be a good one. When will it be good?
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