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Dear Lucas,

One full year has passed since I wrote you. You fantastic little shit.

My best friend’s son is growing up before my very eyes. Six years old now. I think of you every time I spend time with him, and I spend time with him often. I wonder what it will feel like to love a child more than I love Finn. I wonder if love can expand that wide.

This week I took Finn to see the prenatal exhibit at the museum of science and industry. Positioned behind looking glass, there were so many tiny embryos and fetuses, each prevented from surviving by natural causes or accidents.

I thought of Seamus, another friend’s son who was born to the world but died just before turning two. And the twin babies that came later from Seamus’ mother, the two who just turned two. So many tiny children, awake, asleep, alive, dead.

My capacious ability to love children—to love humans—bewilders me.

Today is my mother’s birthday. Her alive self would be 66 years old. Her dead self is almost two years old. My time without her in the world has been so difficult, and it has also been sublime. When every cell of your body is entwined with another from the moment you are conceived, it is complicated love.

I did not write to you this past year because there were no easy words to convey. People look to me for answers about parent loss, caregiving, early onset Alzheimer’s disease, and holding on to your partner during the years when you are caring and losing and grieving. I say there are no answers. I say you should feel everything. I say you should feel nothing. I say I am better, and they will be too, and then I dream nightmares, and I am not better. None of us can ever be better when there is so much loss.

I did not write to you this past year because everything did get better. I stopped numbing myself with alcohol. I stopped terrorizing myself with memories of moments that were terrifying. I drove around the western states for three months until I remembered I could be alone with my own mind again—and not be frightened.

I did not write to you this year because I was watching for myself to come home again. I pressed my eyelids closed with the palms of my hands, and I remembered that it was all true and it is all over. I remembered that I cannot go back and alter one single moment. I cannot make my mom alive when she is dead. I cannot be someone other than me. There is only now and forward. This is nothing and everything.

And, I did not write to you this past year because I was watching for your other mother—she who occupies the most tender eyelets of my heart—to come home again. I stopped locking my elbows, and I let the damp space evaporate. I stopped worrying about drowning in the grief, because I knew I would not. I was, in fact, simply moving through the current, finding my way back to the person—to the love—by which I remain utterly transfixed.

She waited, Lucas. She waited for me.

Now we are waiting for you.

Happy birthday, Mum.

Dear Lucas,

I awoke around 8:45am and your other mother was just returning from a walk with her sweet dog. The two of them sauntered up the stairs, stopping every few steps to trade smiles and tail wags.  There was a package in tow. The mail had arrived early for Saturday.

I rolled over in bed and perched myself on one elbow. I placed a pair of eyeglasses on my nose and accepted the slim box. It was addressed to “The Tiny Redhead’s Parents” with no return label. I peeled back the brown paper and inside were a letter and photo. I began reading.

        My Daughter,

        I feel so canned these days.

I stopped reading and moved my eyes quickly to the signature.

        I love you,

        Your Momma

Back to the top, I observed the date: 2005.

I looked at the photo. It was an 8” by 10” color print of your other mother, me and your grandmother. We were at the beach. We were standing apart, each of us filling a separate corner of the frame.

I looked back at the words, but I failed to achieve focus. Somehow Mum has written a coherent letter eight years ago and then crafted a way to delay delivery until nine months after her death.

A river of tears came up from the center of my heart.

I awoke again. It was 8:45am and your other mother was just returning from a walk with her sweet dog. The two of them sauntered up the stairs, stopping every few steps to trade smiles and tail wags. The bedroom door cracked open and they peeked in to say good morning. There was no package in tow.

“I had such a vivid dream just now,” I said. The river of tears quickly changed places from my heart to my eyes to my cheeks to my pillow case. I could only compose short, incomplete sentences. Certain grief tilted my voice toward a higher octave.

“Maybe this is just your mom’s way of saying she’s got her eye on you,” she gently replied. I nodded and closed my eyes. I longed to be asleep. I longer to see my letter again.

Instead I wrapped myself into your other mother’s arms and pressed my face against her neck. I stayed awake. And I dreamt of you.