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“I can’t stop thinking about him,” she tells me, opening up about our son for the first time since losing him. “It hurts so much. I just . . . I don’t know what to do. When I think about him, I can’t . . .”
“Tell me about it,” I whisper, desperately trying to hold myself together, terrified of breaking. “The things you think about.”
“I . . . I don’t think I can,” she cries.
“Please, baby. I’m missing him, too.”
She nods her head, realizing I need this just as much as she does. “I wanted to call him Tyler,” she says with a small smile. “After you.”
“Yeah?” I question, my whole fucking heart falling out of my chest and crumbling at our feet.
“Yeah,” she says. “I always pictured him just like you. Your own little mini me, with your dark hair and kind eyes. He would have given me hell but I would have loved every second of it. I wanted him to have a piece of you, and seeing as though you don’t use the name, I thought he could.”
Unshed tears start to fill my eyes. Hearing about how she wanted to give our son my name fucking destroys me. I’d never thought about his name, but now that the words have come out of her mouth, it feels so fucking right.
“Tyler Meyers Jr,” I whisper, reaching up and curling my fingers around the back of her neck, my thumb brushing across her jaw. “But you’re dead wrong. He was going to be like you. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and just as stubborn as you. Trust me, we were going to struggle to keep up with him.”
“No way,” she says, shaking her head with a fond smile that melts my heart. “He was going to be an easy baby. He’d breastfeed perfectly and sleep all night. I bet he would have had your dimples as well.”
“I don’t have dimples,” I argue.
“Yeah, you do,” she smiles, the tears silently tracking down her cheeks and splashing against her collarbone. “He would have been perfect, and I would have loved being his mommy. Singing him songs and watching as he fell asleep in my arms. I mean, I didn’t even get a chance to hear his little voice or feel the way his little hand would clutch onto my finger,” she cries. “I just wish I had a chance to hold him. Just once.”
“I know, Sophie,” I whisper, my lips moving against her temple. “I’d give my life if it meant giving him back to you.”
Sophie shuffles around on my lap, straddling me so that she can better wrap herself around me, holding on tight as she nuzzles her face into my neck. She silently breathes me in as we each sit with heavy thoughts.
A few moment pass when I finally find the courage to go on. I know she isn’t going to want to hear this, but it needs to be said. I don’t know if it’s going to hurt her more or help her to move forward, but I need to try. “Soph?” I question.
“Yeah?” she sighs as she grabs the blanket from the bed and uses it to dry her eyes.
“For the rest of our lives, every time we think back to him, it’s going to suck, and it’s going to be hard. That’s what grief is. But I’d like to believe that he’s looking down on us, and I want him to see us shine. I want him to be proud of the lives we’re living. I want him to be boasting to all his little friends up there that his mommy and daddy are rocking it down here. But mostly, I want him to know that everything we do is for him,” I tell her. “I don’t want him looking down on us to see us broken and falling apart. He’s our fucking star, Sophie. He’s shining down on us, lighting our way like a guardian angel. And if he has the strength to light up the whole fucking sky, then the least we can do is live every day to the fullest for him, loving and shining, just the way he would have wanted.”
Sophie’s tears only flow faster as she holds onto me. “You’re right,” she says, her voice breaking with agonizing pain. “I want to live for him,” she says, sitting up a little taller. “My sweet Tyler. I want him to be proud of me.”
“He will be,” I tell her, clinging to her with everything that I am. “And so will I.”
Chapter 14
SOPHIE
I don’t know how the hell he did it, but somehow Tank has managed to heal a bit of the pain that resides in my heart. He helped me to see a future where my won’t be around, and despite that being the hardest realization I’ve ever had to come to, it’s the only way for me to learn how to move forward. Just because I don’t get to hold him or experience life with him by my side, doesn’t mean that I have to forget him.
