thinking

Watched my friend's one year old daughter yesterday which took me back to thinking about my son. I can't believe that I'd have a one year old if Nathan had lived. I can't believe that he'd be pulling up or toddling around, babbling, feeding himself goldfish, and getting into his sister's stuff (everything Molly did here yesterday).
I'm not sure why, but there was a certain "release" that came with the passing of his first birth day. It was as if I held my breath that whole first year, knowing that it wasn't that long ago that I had given birth to my child stillborn... knowing that soon the one year anniversary of his day would come. How would I feel? How would I act? Well, with the passing of that week, it was almost a big sigh of relief or something. I don't quite understand it, but since the calendar flipped to June, the weight of his loss and absence hasn't been quite so heavy. I have no doubt that the coming of my next little one has contributed to the filled hole in my heart. What a blessing it is to be feeling the soft kicks of this child inside me, check-marking the weeks away as we approach the fall.
I think it's also harder to think of Nathan because I only knew him as this tiny newborn and now he'd be so much bigger. It's kinda puzzling to know how to think of him. So, by the grace of God, I sit here today and thank God that He has filled me with new life, knowing that my life was impacted by Nathan, as well as this new one inside me.