I’ve sat here and just stared at the screen not being able to find the right words to write. The screen saver comes on, your face, I lose myself in those deep and loving brown eyes and I realise there are no right words. There are simply no words.

I’m struggling so much right now, as the sun sets on another day without you I wonder how many more sun sets I will witness before I get to hold you again. If only I knew, if only I was able to mark the days off on the calendar with a big Red Cross. Maybe God knows, Sometimes life feels like a punishment. I feel so cruel and guilty saying that, in part due to your little brother, after all, how ungrateful is it to not want to be here when your little brother is here? But it doesn’t work like that. I’m torn, irreparably torn. Forever divided between two places. Here and there.

The happier my day becomes the more sad I feel. How is it possible for these two parallel worlds to exist concurrently; how is it possible to feel happy but so sad all in one. It’s terribly confusing. As we prepare for your little brothers baptism next Sunday I just can’t help but feel laden down with your missing presence. It’s not something I want to put to one side, it’s not an emotion I wish I wasn’t feeling. In a way I want to feel it, I want to suffer, I want to hurt, I hurt for you, I hurt for all that you are missing, I hurt that you don’t get to grow, that you no longer get to witness the sun rise and set.

You would be four years old now, approaching your first year of school. I talk often about the boy that I think you would have become. Quiet, intelligent, calm and loving. A little boy with so much depth, you already had that. I would lose myself in those big brown eyes, your way of loving, when I looked in to your eyes I felt an overwhelming sense of home. I could feel the love, it was tangible. Your curious and quiet nature meant that we were able to spend many tender moments together, I will forever be grateful for these. My body aches for these moments again. I am full of questions and wonder about the little boy you would have become.

When I first found out that I was pregnant I was scared. I was scared that I wouldn’t be a good enough mummy for you, that I wouldn’t know what to do, that I wouldn’t know what your needs were. I had no need to be scared or nervous, you made being a mummy easy. After you died I spent many hours with psychiatrists, trying to fix me, trying to convince me that life was worth living. It was during these sessions that one particular psychiatrist tried to understand just why I couldn’t bear to live without you, as opposed to trying to convince me that it was possible. He understood that all of my life, like most people as we grow up we learn from those around us, society, family and friends lay expectations in your lap, as we grow into adults we feel as though we are finally getting our freedom, but we’re not. The moment that we witnessed the world around us and all the harm that it could do is when we lost our freedom, our innocence.

Growing up I was fiercely independent. I have always felt that I am my own responsibility. I have always felt that I have only ever needed to rely on myself because at least that way the only person who could let you down was you. I have always kept something back, been wary, never giving my entire being to someone, that was until you came along. When I could feel you growing inside me, when I could hear your heart beating I just knew, I knew that this is what I was waiting for. I was waiting for you. I invested physically and emotionally in you. I knew that you would be all that I ever needed, I knew that you would never let me down, I knew that you would always be with me.

Call me a cynic but I have always lived with the thought that I was only round the corner from something going wrong. Inevitably, in my life, it has. But when I had you I knew that despite all that I have been, all that I have done, I got you right. I could be everything you would ever need. Only two weeks before you died I put you in your car seat and cried, why? Nothing in particular, nothing set me off, I just couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have you, I knew that despite everything, no matter what happened, that I would always have you. It would always be me and you. Then you were gone.

I can’t help but feel, despite the failings in your care, the many apologies, that I failed you. I had one job. People joke about managing to keep their kids alive today, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t protect you, I couldn’t save you. You closed your eyes, you slipped out of consciousness and you took your last breath, your beautiful heart stopped beating and I wasn’t there.

I wasn’t there and now you’re not here.

Today I have travelled nearly 400 miles to deliver a talk about your life, and also your death.        People often ask me how I manage to retell the moment that I found your lifeless body, how I tried in vain to pump life back in to you, how I laid, cheek to cheek and begged you to wake up, knowing full well that you never would. It is painful, it is hard, with every word that I speak I know that I am doing the right thing. The gaping hole that your life left cannot be filled, but somehow I have had no choice but to continue, and I suppose this is my way of being your mummy still, until we meet again my baby boy.

www.justgiving.com/williamoscarmead