Most angel parents have one. It's the envelope that has the hardest things to look at.
For me, it's from the funeral home. A picture of my sweet little boy dressed in a beautiful ivory knit outfit with a matching bonnet. His little feet tucked into teddy bear slippers his grandma picked out from his nursery while I laid in a hospital bed in exhausted hysterics. My sweet little boy is in his casket.
We don't care for this picture. His lips are forced shut and his face puffy and starting to discolor. But it's the only picture I have that his hands are showing. Beneath his sweet outfit, I can imagine his perfect little baby shape. A tiny bit of his hairline can be seen reminding me of the brief moment I pulled back his hospital hat to catch a glimpse of his dark hair. It's painfully blunt. The blanket overhanging the box edges that I pray were snugly tucked around him.
What a gift. Our funeral director snapped the picture with his cell phone at the last moment knowing I would not be released from the hospital to see him in his last little bed. He dressed, cleaned, and tucked my son in for me. That stranger got to spend more time with my son than the few brief minutes that the nurses allowed me. I could be jealous, but in reality I'm so very thankful. I'm thankful such a caring individual was brought to us when we needed to be taken care of.
The funeral home also provided a baby book for us to fill out specifically for an angel. Again, a crazy blessing no average person would think of.
I don't know why I dug that up today. The toddler I adore who I babysit was being a horrific monster, I found fleas on the kitten, my wallet is empty from one domestic disaster after another lately, and I had been battling a headache for a solid 10 hours. It was an absolutely crappy day.
Yet I needed to see him. That pain brought a bit of comfort. He was here. It wasn't just a dream.
Tonight's sad ramblings have left me wiped out. Maybe in a few hours when I get up, my headache will have faded and my puffy eyes calmed down. A girl can hope, right? Tonight it hurts to #doitforcj
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