CARTER'S FIRST BIRTHDAY
We are finally back to real blog posts! As much as I kind of didn't enjoy the Capture Your Grief project, it was really nice to have all the posts scheduled out so I didn't have to worry about writing a ton. We were gone for five days on our trip to New England, then I had to take two days off last week because I was sick, and we took Carter's birthday off. There hasn't been much time for writing, but I'm hoping to get back to it. There is a lot I feel like I need to catch you up on!
Carter's birthday was a really beautiful day. I think I have mentioned it before, but the 26th of every month is always harder than the 27th. Finding out we had lost him that day was awful, but meeting him on the 27th was the best day of my life. The year mark was no different. I was really sick on Thursday, so that kind of just drove everything in a little deeper. But we spent Thursday relaxing and just thinking about our boy, so it was still kind of a nice day. We woke up Friday morning just a little before 8:51, the time he was born. We watched the clock slowly tick toward that time, and when it finally came, I think we both just thought about the events of that morning. Maybe I'm just used to being sad all the time, but reliving Carter's birth was not as hard as I thought it would be. I loved thinking about the first time we got to see him, holding him, and just being in awe of the perfect little baby we had made.
We exchanged gifts, and it was actually kind of precious how similar they were. As you know, the image on Carter's headstone is one that Brandon drew to hang in the nursery. Brandon had his drawing etched onto a necklace for me, and I had it carved onto a wallet for him. Neither of us knew what the other person was doing, and I thought it was really special that we both had the same thought. Now, the same drawing that lays with our boy can be with us all the time as well.
When we got to cemetery, we were surprised to see a lot of Brandon's family there. Originally we had thought about having a little get-together for everyone, but decided that we'd rather not tie ourselves down with plans, just in case we weren't up for it. The day had turned out to not be as difficult as we had anticipated, so it was actually nice to see everyone up there. They all just kind of hung out as we cleaned off the headstone, and then after about an hour or so, everyone left, and Brandon and I stayed to have some time to ourselves. The cemetery in Logan is so peaceful. Carter is buried in what is called Babyland, so he is buried next to other children that have passed away. You can really feel the love in that area. We rearranged all of Carter's airplanes (if you are reading this and you left the big metal airplane can you please tell me who you are????), organized their toys, and just kind of hung out with the babies until we decided it was time to go.
That night, we cut into the cake we had ordered to celebrate his birthday. Swirly Girls Bakery did such an amazing job, and the cake was so perfect that I almost didn't even want to eat it. We should have been watching our little one year old smash a cake, but instead we ate our own cake in silence, just missing him.
Even though it was a hard day, it really was beautiful. All the texts, comments, and messages we received were so appreciated, even if we didn't respond to them. We are so grateful for every little thing Carter has brought into our lives, and so proud of the person we know he is and would have been. It has been one long, crappy year without our boy, but we are so grateful for his presence in our lives, and are happy to call him ours.
Brandon made a really sweet video about his birthday. You can watch it below.
And this is one we filmed before Carter's birthday, just talking about all of our feelings.