Life can be amazing and still hold rough days

I do feel incredibly blessed for what I have in this life.  I am healthy, I have an amazing husband that I am truly in love with (even in the moments when I can tell he's testing my last nerve), I have 3 beautiful children, I have 2 little girls that makes the sun shine brighter and the colors of the rainbow more intense than I ever could have imagined, I have wonderful friends who I know I can depend on in any situation and whom I trust, we have a house with plenty of room for all of us and our stuff, we have full bellies and we're making happy memories each and every day.

However, you can be happy with life and still have moments where it grief makes it so incredibly painful to breath.  Sometimes you can predict them, you can avoid things that are going to trigger a feeling of such immense sadness that it just overcomes you, but you can't always.  One of the rough parts about grieving your child is that while a part of you is always missing, and even in the happiest of moments, a part of you is sad beyond words, is that sometimes it hits you like a punch in the stomach and the tears start and don't stop.

This is "that time of year."  It's when the grief is at it's worse.  And from the past years (how can it possibly be years since we've held, touched, loved on, kissed, fed and cuddled with our little boy???) I know to expect there to be more rough days through December than there are in the spring.  We are in the time of year where I can say "4 years ago today we were ______ with Matthew."  We are in that short time frame of year where 4 years ago he was alive, he was at home with us and we had hope.  We had no reason to think he would become a statistic, a part of this ridiculous world of SIDS and all that comes with it.  We're quickly approaching the 4 year anniversary of his death and I hate that.  I hate everything about October 15.

I think this has also become the time of year when I reevaluate the things and relationships in our lives.  I have less patience.  I feel more "blah" about things and at the same time I am even more appreciative of the positive, supporting relationships that we have.  I feel almost all over the place.  And I know that's ok.  I don't need to be Miss Cheery Sunshine all the time just to prevent other people from being uncomfortable.

And, I have to say, I am getting to a point where I don't necessarily believe in SIDS.  I'm sure I'll need to explain that further in the future, and I will.  I think I've reached the point in my grieving where I don't feel as though I have to know WHY because I know that knowing will not change a single thing in the world.  It will not bring him back, it will not give us back the last 4 years and there is a good chance it will not prevent the death of another little one.  I believe SIDS was a term invented because it's really hard to tell parents "we're very sorry and we know you did everything right but sometimes, babies just die.  There is nothing you could have done differently to prevent this, sadly, your baby died for unknown reasons."  And it's even harder for society to accept that.  Then again, we've become a society that lives to be 95 and then when someone's body and soul are ready to pass at that age we still keep them hooked up to life support to gain more time.  And I completely understand that desire to have more time.  COMPLETELY.

At the end of the day though, and every moment throughout, I miss him.  I'm sad that he didn't get to meet Samantha.  I'm sad that Kaitlyn doesn't have her 4 year old brother to play with, I'm sad that we don't get to know more about him and explore the world through his eyes.  And I'm sad that we're going into another holiday season missing a part of our family.