My Body simply knows

There’s a weight that settles into my chest, an ache that gets heavier and heavier, something I can’t explain, it’s something that can only be felt. My heart, my soul, every part of me recognises what’s coming. As Jack’s anniversary comes around again there’s a knowing that lives deep within my bones. My soul remembers, and it aches, because god, I miss him.

But there are still so many days I forget.

I’ll walk past the front door and see his car in the driveway. My feet walk me down the hallway to his room, ready to call out his name, to tell him something, to hear his laugh, or hear him yelling at his PlayStation. Always ready for him to jump out and scare the life out of me, like he always did.

Then it hits me again, like it always does, he’s no longer here.

And yet, I feel him everywhere. In the silence, in the corners of the house and the places he loved.

My beautiful boy, I often wonder where you’d be now.

Would Canada and Japan be ticked off your bucket list?

I watch your mates’ lives unfold from the sidelines, and my mind constantly races with endless thoughts.

Would I be taking photos of you and your baby, watching you become the amazing father I know you would have been?

Would you be buying your first home, engaged to be married, building your life?

These questions sit quietly in the corners of my mind, always there, quietly, painfully, hurting, every single day.

Jack, I miss you in the smallest moments and the biggest ones.

There’s not a day that passes that I don’t think of you, wish to hear your voice, see your beautiful big smile. You live within us, in the way we speak your name, in the stories we share and in the way we carry you forward with us every single day.

I hold onto the love, the laughter, the warmth, and the light you brought into my life.

Eight years served of the life sentence given to us.

A sentence of missing you, of loving you from a distance none of us ever asked for.

We love you, Jack. I miss you more than words can ever say.

I hope wherever you are my beautiful boy you are happy. There is nowhere you could go that I won’t be with you. You have my heart, my darling boy.

Love Mum xx