It’s been a long while. It always is between these kinds of connections. Not the day-to-day, the small chats, the thoughts. The integration into life that inevitably occurs. But thinking a little deeper, seeking a different kind of space, wanting to create and mark, that tends to only happen around your birthday.

So what does this look like 13 years on?

When we first said good-bye, it was something I was desperate to know – would my life be okay? Would we recover? How on earth would it be possible?

The fact is that it wasn’t possible – not in the first flush of grief. Not when other mother’s had babies in the arms and I had nothingness. Not when my whole life had been designed to hold you and you were no longer there. That was impossible. And somehow we survived. Thrived. We were okay. Humans face the impossible every day. You only need to tune into the news to know that.

And now I am on the other side of impossible. Looking forward to a day with the family, as we always do on your birthday. I’m potentially better at marking yours than your brothers to be honest.

We talk. Often. And I see you all the time. When some little thing unexplained thing happens. When I sense you looking after us and protecting us. When someone sends me a rainbow and lets me know that they are thinking of you. And all the birthday wishes today will bring. And all in of this, honestly, there is joy. Its such a hard thing for anyone who hasn’t experience this kind of loss to understand. That at the end, there is still joy in remembering. Joy in connecting. That once all the heartache finally subsides, that you are still left with something and it’s happier than expected.

Grief is often expressed as love with nowhere to go. It always express in the context of sadness. But there is another side of it. Where you get to truly appreciate the thin veils that separate us from something much larger. Where you get to consider your place in the universe in a different way. When you find the way to anchor that love that felt groundless.

You will hear families that have experience loss often say “I’ve learnt so much, but I would give it away in a heartbeat to have them back”. I said that.

This year, I am not so sure. Not that I would wish the experience on any-one. I would not. But in, a way, I DO have you back. It took a very long time to get it here, but I feel you near still and I have a different appreciation of this life. I feel deeply and strongly that you are with your grandfather. Who is also close to us but in a different way. Grief cracks us open, but it doesn’t need to hollow us out. It can make space – for thinking about things in a different way and realising that relationships are so rooted within us that not even death can sever them.

I used to ache with the absence. Now I carry you with peace. You’re still here. And on your birthday, my darling boy, I feel you just a little bit closer.