It’s 5 months today since I lost my first born son, Brendan Bjorn, on 17 May 2022. I don’t know where the time has gone. It was just yesterday, or so it feels with such raw pain. It was ages ago, or so it feels with the surreal nature of grief.

I was blessed to have him in my life for 17 years, 7 months and 17 days.
That is time I wouldn’t trade for the world.

Five months on, I am beginning to peak around the corner into the future. To be brutally honest, I worry about how much time I myself have left now. I am determined, for the sake of my youngest son, to make sure I have as much time as possible on this earth with him. I am all he has left.

You see, my health has been growing worse. It’s time for me to focus on…well…me. It’s time I put the oxygen mask on myself before putting it on my child, as the analogy goes. I am on 2 waitlists to see specialist consultants: neurology and cardiology. Even though I have private health coverage and a medical card, my GP tells me the neurology consult will be a long time in coming.

As symptoms grow worse, I feel, I fear, I don’t have the time to wait years.
No one should have to wait years for a diagnosis and hopeful treatment for any issue.

In the time being, the GP, my rheumatologist and my respiratory consultant will have to do what they can even though it may be outside of their expertise. I hope that gives me more time while I wait. The symptoms I have and the pain I’m in don’t make this present time, or the wait, very easy.

It’s time now to not only get my own health sorted out, but to get my affairs in order just in case time isn’t on my side. I’m not being dramatic. I’m being logical and trying to look out for my younger son. Five months on from him losing his only sibling, his beloved brother, it’s time my life is all about him, and in that, it means doing all I can to assure that I’m here as long as possible for him. Or, God forbid, if I’m not here, that he will be well loved, well cared for and thrive in his life. It’s time for a lot of decisions to be made.

It’s time now.

Time.
It can be cruel, healing, elusive, slow to pass or go at lighting speed.
It is something we all wish we had more of and thus should cherish what we do have.

Five months on today, my angel boy Brendan Bjorn. If only I had more time with you.
Watch over me and your brother please, keep us healthy and safe
and guide us to fill our time as best we can do.

You would have been 18 years old today, but four and a half months shy of turning 18, we lost you. Four and a half months ago our worlds came crashing down in clearly different ways.

I ache for you every single day since.
How do I do this, Brendan Bjørn?
How do I get through this pain and carry on?

I don’t know how I will handle today. And then there’s that first Christmas without you that is also fast approaching. You so dearly loved the lights on the Christmas tree. So much so, that I would always put up the tree in November just for you to happily gaze upon. Do you remember that where you are now? I hope you do.

Your brother misses you. I can’t help but believe you know this as you watch over him now. How you always loved to watch him! The smile that would beam across your face as your love for him radiated out from you. Yes, he misses you immensely, too.

I wish I could hear you guide me forward, telling me what I should do next. For nearly 18 years, it was you who guided me…your needs were the centre of our world. You were my compass and now I’m lost without your direction, your purpose in my life.

Your bedroom remains the same: half empty without your bed and your wheelchair, yet still all of your other belongs are there, frozen in time, unmoved, untouched. But I suppose you see that now, too, don’t you?

I wish I could see you again. Feel your oh-so-soft cheeks as I caress your face with my hands. Feel you breathing in and out as I lay my head gently on your chest to listen to your heartbeat; a sound that I knew, as the days drew near to an end, I wouldn’t get to ever hear again.

I wish I could find peace in your passing, but I don’t. There is no peace for me, but I hope and pray that there is for you. I still wrestle with self-doubt as to if I did all I could, the best I could, when I could.

Did I?
I wish you could tell me now.

My beloved first born son, I will never forget the first time I saw your chubby little face, scowling at the bright lights of the operating room just after you arrived via cesarean section. My first time to give you what would end up being countless kisses. Ten lifetime’s worth of kisses given over 17 and a half years knowing that you’d not get all the time in this life that you so truly deserved.

To kiss you one more time and have you giggle as you would do.
If only I could…If only you could.

It’s your 18th birthday and I don’t know how to get through this first birthday without you. No balloons. No birthday cake or candles or Happy Birthday song to be sung. Only silence and a desperate longing to have more time with you, my beautiful, precious boy. I know it’s an impossible wish, but I wish it all the same. It’s your birthday yet here I am selfishly being the one wanting that birthday wish to come true. I know you’d understand. And I hope where you are, you aren’t longing for my kisses and snuggles like I am for yours. I hope you’re not wanting for anything. I hope you’re in a beautiful place of bliss that I can’t even begin to imagine. That is my birthday wish for you.

Declan and I have talked about your special day and we will do something to honour you today. I would say to remember you, but my love, we will never, ever, forget you. Know that, please.

I hope the angels are surrounding you with the most glorious of light and love and music of the ages, especially today on this very special day.

And I hope you’ll let me know, somehow, that they are and that you’re with me and Declan still. I won’t ever stop listening for you, angel boy.

Happy birthday, Brendan Bjørn.
I will love you forever and ever and a day,
your Mommy