My birthday letter to my angel boy in heaven

You were due on Christmas Day 1996, but you got too comfortable in the warmth of my belly and decided to wait it out another few weeks until the doctor had no choice but to induce labor because you were getting too big!

I wanted so badly to have a natural birth, but your little head turned side-ways, and both of us got into distress. You were brought into this world by emergency c -section 7:30 pm on Jan. 8 in Camp Hill Pennsylvania.

I did not know if you would be a boy or girl and I did not want to know. I thought for sure you would be a girl and your father and I had the name thought out months before you were born.  Your name would be Emily,  your Nan’s middle name.  Just in case, we picked a boy’s name. It did not take us long to figure out you would be Logan. We thought it was a cool name, like the science fiction movie decades ago called “Logan’s Run.” And your middle name Conner seemed a natural fit.

And Logan Conner Neale came into this world 21-years-ago today.

I was under anesthesia as the doctor performed surgery to deliver you, but your Dad was there and so incredibly excited to see this miracle before his eyes. You were a big, healthy ten-pounder, with a full head of hair and bladder, I might add. As soon as the doctors delivered you, you peed like a water fountain striking them in the eye.

When I came to, I was in recovery.  Dad was right there making sure I was ok, but would not tell me anything. His expression said it all. I knew you were healthy, but not sure if you were Emily or Logan. Dad wheeled my bed to the nursery and the nurse came out of the room with you swallowed in a blue blanket. My little Logan. You were alert as if you had been born for a while. We looked at each other for the first time and all I wanted to do was protect you from the world.

You became a part of me the moment I figured out I was pregnant. Once you were born, and I held all ten pounds of you in my arms, my soul was sewn to yours.  Forever.

Nineteen years later, you and I were back in surgery again, together.  This time, I was the one alert with your circle of loved ones around you, to be with you as you passed from this life to the next. I knew hope’s earthly time clock had run out of seconds for you. Your bodily injuries were too severe from the truck crash. The body that held your soul would not survive past sunrise.

It was my sacred honor to be with you as you died. I stroked your blood stained hair and skin, like touching the wings of an angel.

Nan always called you her Angel Boy.

In the days afterward, I saw you a few times.  You were standing in your favorite spot in the kitchen by the spices.   At a lunch place, you were behind the counter fixing my sandwich, looking up with your bright warm smile.  I would find myself in a total panic trying to grocery shop, my mind completely gripped in anxiety, and I hear your presence in my mind,  “I am ok.”  May be this was wishful thinking on my part.  May be it was you.

It has been nearly 16 months since you left this world. I am struggling along this grief journey.  It is really hard Logan.  I get so angry that you left like this. I get so angry at God, but your death is not God’s doing.  Things don’t happen for a reason,  They happen as a result of a million choices and circumstances.  God is there to keep me going.

I am beginning to figure out, the grief journey is a soul journey. That’s the message I am getting from you.

Happy Birthday my dear son.