Reflecting Back

November 17.  Not a terribly significant day to most people.  Not even to me really.  But every year when November 17 rolls around I get a little reflective of the past.  Today would have been my brother Jake's 23rd birthday.  This is not something that consumes my life.  But I do think about it some, especially on his birthday and the day he died.  He actually was my second brother to die, after Brian, which is a whole different story that I don't know if I'll ever post about.  Mostly because I don't want people to think I'm trying to draw attention to myself.  Anyways, after Brian died, my mom was unable to have any more babies and so they decided to try adopting.  Me and my brother knew nothing of it until we were on the way to the hospital that day.  My parents asked us while we were in the car what we would name a little brother if we ever had one.  I was five and Nate was three.  We really couldn't come up with any names except for the names of boys we knew well from church.  My dad said "Well, how about Jake?"  We both thought that was a pretty good idea.  I remember sitting in a small room in the hospital, still not really aware of what was going on.  Then a doctor walked in carrying a box.  Yes, a box.  Like, one of those filing boxes with a lid on it, not one with flaps.  The lid was off, don't worry!  There's was a little tiny baby in that box and he was ours to keep.  I can only imagine the questions that we asked mom and dad on the way home.  For eight months he was the pride and joy of our house.  We loved having him around.  One night in July though- July 9- he fell between the mattress and the bars of his crib with his face towards the mattress and suffocated.  I won't go into what all I remember from that night becuase I really don't want this to be a post about a horrible night. 
When I think about him, I no longer think of how it's so sad and how much we miss him.  I mostly just wonder what he would be like.  Would he like to farm with dad and Nate? Would he be close to Jared, my cousin who's only one month younger?  Would he be converted?  Would he, unlike the rest of the family, be athletic and agile?  I think my parents said once that he was 1/2 Pakistanian.  Which also makes me wonder sometimes if he would be the victim of prejudice and ridicule, to an extent at least.  Also, in the more recent years, I find myself wondering more and more about his birth mom.  I feel like along with giving your baby up comes a hope of maybe being reunited with them later on in life.  Maybe not, but it seems like that would be true.  I don't know anything about her story.  I don't know if she was a young teenage girl who knew she was too young to take care of her baby.  I don't know if she was in and out of prison and the state gave her no choice but to give her baby away.  I don't know if she just didn't want to have a baby.  At one point, there was a little blue flower that would show up on his grave every year around his birthday and we have wondered in the past if maybe somehow she knew and found his grave.  I feel for her though.  The grief she must have felt giving him away combined with the grief of knowing what happened must have been almost too much to bear.  Sometimes I wish that I could meet her and talk to her.  Probably like most people who lose children, time has healed her wounds and she has been able to move on.  But I'm sure there are so many questions and I would love to just sit down with her.  I would love to hug her and if anything, say thanks for allowing us to love him while we could. 


Well, on a completely different and much lighter note, I'm leaving for Magdalena on Friday morning.  I'm so excited!!  I probably won't post between now and then (not that I post that often anyway) but that's where I'll be.  Have a happy Thanksgiving!