i need you, my love

Dear Juji Muji,

I miss you. Tomorrow we will be attending the SIDS conference on behalf of our non-profit, and I'm so nervous. We've been so busy getting ready for it that it hasn't really registered what we will be doing. I'm not really sure what to expect. But I know that it will be a day of thinking of you, and what happened on the absolute worst day of our lives. It will be a day of reliving the day my heart literally broke in half. I'm hoping that I won't be asked about that day too much. But that I will get to do a lot of bragging about my firstborn baby boy, and his very meaningful life.

our display board for the conference

You aren't here with us physically, but you are deeply missed. You are constantly thought about. You are forever loved and cherished. Though your life was so incredibly short, you had such a profound, lasting impact on us and the world.

I wish I could kiss your sweet face again.

I wish I could brush your curly hair again.

I wish I could cuddle all 19lbs of your delicious chubbiness again.

I wish I could stick my nose in your neck rolls and breathe in your wonderful baby smells again.

But until then, I will keep working on things that bring me close to you. Until then, I will brag and talk about you to anyone who will listen. Until then, I will tell your little sister all about you...

the 3 of us

Help me get through tomorrow, please. Stay extra close to me and surround me with your love.

I miss you and love you so much,

Mommy

Giving back with Stella & Dot: Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope

as i mentioned in my last post, i recently became a Stella & Dot stylist. i was trying to figure out how i could incorporate my baby boy, and use this new journey for good, and then it hit me. fundraising! so i got in contact with the lovely kristin, founder of Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope, and asked if she would allow me to throw her an online "trunk show" to raise money for FOLFOH.

i know for me personally, kristin and FOLFOH have done so much for us. i'm so thankful to her for starting that amazing organization, and giving all of us BLMs a way to connect, and talk about our precious children. so i am truly honored to be able to do this for FOLFOH. plus, kristin is just an amazing person, period. and i'm glad that i have had the privilege of meeting her in person.

so please check out kristin's online trunk show benefiting Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope at this link (http://www.stelladot.com/ts/hvmi5). i will be donating 50% of the proceeds FOLFOH {please make sure to purchase through the link posted for it to count}.

and if you are wondering if there is anything you could get from S&D to honor your little one/loved one, the answer is YES. S&D's new charms collection is such a great way to tell your story, as they can be personalized. i got charms to represent both of my babies, and love it.

the angel wing is called "watch over you" and represents Julius. the shoe is called "pitter patter" and represents baby girl.

a big "thank you" to kristin and FOLFOH for all they do for grieving families. and even bigger "thank you" in advance to everyone for your support!

my space for my son..............and other updates

i don't know what it is, but in the last couple of weeks i have had several emails from people/organizations trying to get me to promote them or their products. so i thought i would start this post off, with a little message:

please please please leave me alone! this space is for my son. this space started off being about my life with him, and is now about coping with life without him. it's about remembering how he brightened my world all 135 days of his very short life. it's about mothering him and his memory from afar. so while i'm glad you found my blog, and you enjoy my style of writing (???), i'm not at all interested in promoting your website, or product. i'm not interested in doing a review for halloween costumes (seriously?), or puzzles, or anything else you are trying to sell. please respect my space, and my son!

whew, ok, i'm glad i got that off of my chest....

it's been a while since i've posted last. life has hit us hard. at times it's been very hard for me to keep up with everything. work is still stressful. little girl is still as hyper as always, and is becoming increasingly mobile (read, pulling herself up and trying to walk!!!). and on top of that i've been working on a couple of projects.

the first one fell in my lap last week. and i've been scrambling to prepare for it. i just found out that there is going to be a SIDS conference in Montgomery at the end of the month, and was invited to participate on behalf of our newly incorporated organization In His Name - The JLT Foundation. i had to think about this long and hard since 1) it means the whole family schlepping down to Montgomery for a day or two and me taking off of work, and 2) i KNOW it's going to be a very intense day for me since i will be doing a lot of talking about my son (not the hard part) and that day (the hard part). but in the end, i felt like i have to go. besides the obvious of just being able to tell my son's story, it will be a way for In His Name to begin forging relationships with people in the medical community across the state so that we can help other families that have experienced what we have (and those families yet to come).

the second project has been a breath of fresh air for me. this has been the 1st time since Julius passed away that i have taken time to do something for me. i recently became a Stella & Dot stylist. it also happened rather quickly - too quickly for me to really realize what i was doing. but it has done my spirit some good. i'm also working on putting together a couple of charity events so that i can give back to those organizations that have done so much for me during the darkest time of my life (one happening very soon, but i'm not going to spill the beans just yet), so i'm excited to see where this new journey takes me. but i know that even this will be done with my baby boy in mind. he is my motivation for everything, and i will even sell jewelry with him in mind. :)

life these days

it's hard to believe that it's been over a month since i last posted here. life has been so incredibly busy these days. i don't know where the month of june went.

our baby girl has hit the six month mark, and has been keeping us on our toes. she amazes us more and more every day. Julius sent us such a perfect gift in her. she is hitting developmental milestones that we never got to with Julius, so it's also been very bittersweet. i tear up constantly when i think about how thankful i am for her presence in my life. she is helping me navigate through life without my son - not replacing, just assisting my heart through this painful journey. i am having more moments where i feel as though i'm living instead of just surviving. where i feel as though i have energy to care about things i once could not.

i don't think i'm any less terrified of losing her now that we've passed the 4.5 month mark. but the fear is not as suffocating as it once was. my heart is more hopeful these days of a future with her. and i continue to take things one step/day/breath at a time. i try to make my moments count with her. i try to relay to her just how much we all love her. and i feel like she is trying to express to us how much she loves us too. she, like her brother, loves to be held and kissed, and we do it often.

her baptism was 2 weekends ago. it was a very different experience than what we had with Julius. our church has baptisms every sunday, so you can potentially have your child's baptism with multiple families. we were lucky with Julius as he was the only child being baptized the day he was baptized. and he had not only the parish pastor baptize him, but the associate pastor was there observing (he was new at the time). it was very intimate, and looking back it was perfect. our baby girl's baptism was much less intimate because there was another family. it was still a very special occasion, of course, just different.

my parents came up for the week, which was nice. and we got a lot of things done around the house (they like to be put to work). we got most of the inside of the house painted. and i finally got to put up the wall decal i had customized for him. i also got a lot of work done in his garden which had gone neglected for some time because of my being pregnant, winter, taking care of baby girl, and intense heat.

i carry your heart in my heart...

the other thing that i've been extrememly busy working on is trying to get our non-profit (In His Name) up and running. i'm so proud to announce that we have finished the state portion, and are an official corporation here in AL. Our official name is "In His Name - The Julius Luciano Torres Foundation." the next step is filling out the paperwork to become a tax exempt non-profit with the federal government. The paperwork is much more tedious, but i'm hopeful that we can get it done in the next few months. it's been very meaningful and rewarding for me to be able to work on this. it brings me closer to him, and makes me feel as though i'm mothering him in my own way.

his day in pictures

thank you all so much for all of your thoughts and prayers, and most importantly for remembering our son with us! i could not have gotten through that day without you all. even though the weeks leading up to his birthday were so emotional, his day was peaceful {the anticipation of the day is always far worse for me than the actual day}. and i'm always determined to make his birthday a day of celebrating his life and the impact he has had on me, our family, and the world.

we spent the day in the park - "his park" - the park that he and i were at the day before he passed away. i have not been to that park since we were there last. i wasn't sure i was going to be able to do it. the plan was to go there and to find the brick that we had engraved for him through our local museum of art. in the end, we weren't able to find the brick because turns out someone dropped the ball on that and it *still* has not been placed after a year {boo!!}. but we are working with them to have that corrected asap. and we did not let it ruin his day. we actually got free admission into the museum that day while we waited for someone to research what had happened {thanks to D for deciding to make them aware of it that day like the protective daddy that he is}. and we got a little sign from him while in the museum!

when we came home, we had dinner {KFC for me}! i made his cake with fondant {though i bought the pre-rolled fondant at the craft store}.  and we spent the end of the day like we had spent the rest of the day - together as a family!



his memorial ad in the paper on his birthday

me and little sis in the park

Julius making his presence known to us at the museum

dinner! what i had after giving birth to my boy

the cake i made for him

inside the cake

his special candle lit for him

a million "thank you's" to everyone who sent pics with Julius' name!!!! i will be starting a photo album dedicated to all of the keepsake pictures i have been sent. if you would like to help me fill his album, i would be forever grateful. just send the pics to me and i will add them in!

thank you mary!

thank you mary!

thank you melissa and Charlotte!

thank you chantel!

thank you lauren!

thank you rona!

thank you brooke!

thank you rebecca!

thank you beth!

Happy 2nd Birthday!

Dear Julius,

Happy Birthday! Words fail me. Everything I want to say, I feel I have said a million times. We miss you. We love you. We wish you were here. Today we celebrate your life, the time we had with you, and the way you changed the world. I hope wherever you are, you are safe and happy and know just how much you are loved and adored. I'm incredibly proud to call you my son.

Love always,
Mommy

Right Where I Am: 1 year, 7 months, 3 weeks, 2 days

i don't understand how it's been almost a year since i made this post. in fact, i was so shocked when i saw that some of my blogger friends were making new posts, convinced that surely a whole year had not passed. i was wrong, it has.

so where am i on my grief journey currently? well, today is the day before my son's 2nd birthday. i'm still broken shattered. the past few days my heart has been heavier than normal, and i've been weepier (is that even a word?) than normal. i just miss him so intensely, and i wish more than anything that he was here with us.

this last year we have gone through so many transitions. we had just celebrated Julius' 1st birthday without him, and discovered that i was pregnant for the 2nd time weeks before i wrote the last post. since then we marked his angelversary, i gave birth to his baby sister, and she  has now officially outlived him.

my grief has taken so many shapes in that year. during my pregnancy i became very withdrawn. pregnancy itself leaves a person with very little energy. but pregnancy, on top of grief left me feeling so incredibly run down. i only had enough energy to do the bear minimum. i kept myself so busy, maybe too busy, that if/when i did have "free time" it was spent laid up on the couch watching tv and trying to recouperate. i avoided people as much as i could because i just couldn't deal with the well-wishes, or questions about my pregnancy, since i was sure that those questions would lead to me telling Julius' story.

after she was born, despite being excited that she was now with us, i was full of dread. again, it's hard enough to deal with the recovery process of labor/birth and everything that goes along with breastfeeding, but to do all of that while grieving left me feeling overwhelmed. and again, we spent most of the time in the house, withdrawn from the outside world. in my mind, the countdown had begun, and i still wasn't emotionally ready to deal with the well-wishes, and superficial conversation about babies.

it has only been recently that i've been feeling that i'm finally finding my footing {though typing those words causes a surge of anxiety within me as though i'm going to jinx something}. our baby girl has been keeping us busy, and making us laugh. she has brought healing to our hearts, and joy to our home. but every single moment of happiness and shear bliss, is followed by a twinge of pain because Julius is not with us. we are missing out on so much without him. she has exponentially increased the love in our hearts, but she does not erase the pain of his loss {nor would i want her to}.

i still feel that ebb and flow of grief. some days are easier to deal with than others. because of his birthday tomorrow the days have been harder to get through. but what hasn't changed since the last time i posted is that, despite once thinking that i would never make it if anything ever happened to my child, i continue to survive this, taking things one day at a time. all the while thankful for the chance to love him, even for a short while, in person, and eternally in my heart.