I put on a happy face this morning when I woke up and greeted my children like today was another regular day.

I picked Knox up and held him tight and whispered birthday wishes into his ear as he squirmed for freedom. “You’re eight today, cub,” I announced as I slathered kisses on his cheeks wet from drool.

I hugged Fric and Frac and told them to try and enjoy their day and to remember it’s their little brother’s birthday and I promised them it was okay to feel any way they wanted to. My daughter blinked back tears as she nodded; clutching her Shale bear tight and bravely smiled and said “Today’s the day we celebrate for Knox.”

Frac was remained quiet but I caught him singing Happy Birthday to Knox as he wrestled his brother into his splints and shoes. Frac is the only one who can seem to get them onto Knox’s feet.

I watched all three of my children walk down the drive, somber and confused, and then I cried.

I was surprised I could hold the tears back for as long as I did, to be honest.

I feel like a failure as a mom, because what type of mother can’t celebrate the birth of her child?

The type of mother, I suppose, that watched her other son die on the same day her other child was born.

Beginnings are hard, endings are harder. And it’s all too much when they fall on the same damn day.

October 21 took one son away from me and then later gave me another. The irony of this is lost on me as I struggle to maintain my composure for those around me. I don’t know how to graciously accept birthday wishes while listening to hushed whispers of condolences. It’s the hardest thing to do and it’s my own personal version of Ground Hog’s day hell for every calendar year to follow.

The gift of my beautiful child Knox and his life has been marred by the loss of the brother he will never know. Nothing in life is free or fair. My new son came with a price tag, one that we were willing to accept but without really understanding the cost.

One day of hell for a life time of gain, I suppose. A deal with the devil, a fair trade.

But it’s so fucking hard, and I haven’t found the balance yet. I don’t know how to weep for the loss of a child I loved so dearly my world collapsed in his absence while celebrating the birth of another son who I love so dearly my world is righted by his presence.

I can’t wish October 21 off the calendar because without it my son wouldn’t be here.

But with it, my other son is lost to me forever.

I haven’t found a way to reconcile the two just yet and I don’t know if I ever will.

Six years ago I watched as my Shale died, uselessly and without purpose or warning, taking with him a joy I’ve never been able to replace. Our family fractured forever and there is no glue in the world to fix the cracks we all collectively share. That Tanis, that mother, that person, she no longer exists. And I’m learning six years is still not long enough to dull the pain that flows through my heart and cripples my soul.

I miss my son. Wildly. I still wake up at night to be crushed with the realization he isn’t just down the hall from me, snoring softly in his room. He no longer exists except for in my heart and the memories of those who loved him.

But eight years ago, my son Knox was born, unbeknownst to me. A culmination of circumstances and horror lead him to our family, and his presence breathed new life into all of us. His unrelenting joy and loving spirit has brought a peace to all of us as we listen to him snuffle in his sleep.

A bed that was empty is once again filled.

But the memory of who is lost haunts me, us, and casts a permanent shadow on our lives.

Six years and the shadow is still long and dark. I was foolish to hope this grief and sorrow would be a terrible memory by now.

I’m so sorry Shale that I couldn’t save you. And I’m so sorry Knox that I can’t celebrate your birth with wild abandon and joy. I’m still broken inside. There is not a day that goes by that I’m not gripped with a fierce love and thankfulness that you exist and that I can call you mine. But for one horrible day of the year I am all yours. Completely and unreservedly.

But today, today you have to share me with the brother you never knew. And I am so terribly, absolutely sorry for that.

Happy eighth birthday my beautiful Knox. We love you more than any words can ever express.

I’m so sorry Shale. What if’s and wishes tear at my heart and we, I, miss you so much it hurts to breathe. You are not forgotten. We love you still. Absolutely. Always.

One day I’ll be able to let go.

But it likely won’t happen on an October 21.

Happy Birthday Knox. We love you to the moon and back.

We miss you Shale. Every day. Look for our love; it’s brought to you by an angel’s wings.

It’s his tenth birthday tomorrow. I only saw him for four of them, his life snuffed out just shy of my son blowing out the candles for his fifth. His heart has been still longer than it thumped thumped under the pale white skin covering his chest.

I thought I’d be further along by now. I thought the pain would be numbed by the tic tocking of the passing of time; I believed I’d grow immune to this dull throb that aches my heart daily.

The canvas of my life is barren, whited out as though a blizzard swept through and covered everything with heavy white snow. I’m washed out. Only now the snow isn’t pristine, it’s riddled with the footprints of my grief, trudged back and forth through this never-ending winter as I hunt for signs of life, of joy, once more. I miss the pristine, freshly fallen snow. When the pain was razor sharp and the air was so cold it burned my lungs as I drew it into my body. I’m numb to it now, perpetually chilled, alone. He was closer to me then, when the snow was fresh. Every footstep I make in this snow of grief seems to tamp his memories further away from me.

It’s a weird thing to grieve a son the world, I, barely knew. They, the world, the authorities on grief, they all told me there was no time limit to this pain. They told me it would haunt me until it wouldn’t anymore. They told me to try and move on. To forgive. To forget.

But I can’t.

I can’t forgive. It’s too vast and I don’t know who to ask forgiveness from. God? He has long since abandoned me, even as the cries from well meaning Christians argue otherwise. Myself? I was his mom. My sole task in life was to ensure he outlived me. I failed. My son? He died on me, leaving his siblings and his father alone with me to struggle in this pain forever.

I can’t forgive my relatives and my friends for no longer sharing this pain with me. They’ve moved on while I’m still stuck, spinning in this snow, looking for a way out.

There is no one to forgive, nothing to forgive and yet forgiveness is the one thing I seek and the one thing I can’t seem to find.

On his tenth birthday for my son, my ghost child, I’m mad. I’m mad at myself for feeling like this, mad at everyone who doesn’t. I’m mad small children have grown up and forgotten he lived, I’m angry new children have been born and will never have the chance to forget him.

I’m furious his siblings have had to trudge through this blanket of snow beside me, making their own indelible footprints in this blizzard of pain. They were children. They are children. Smalls who should have never known a pain like this. It tears me apart even wider with every tear spilled over their lashes as they miss their brother.

Failure has defined my parenting and marked itself all over my life and there is little I can do to erase the stench of it. Failure to protect, first Shale and then his siblings. The smell is everywhere, like the cloying smell of mothballs in an old wood trunk. I can’t escape it, I can’t cover it up.

I’ve spent the past five years, the past six January fourths trying to overcome this pain. This day. I’ve dedicated my life to remembering joy, to teaching my children to forget survival and aim for thriving. I practice what I preach, I own it. I work hard to make sure this tragedy hasn’t shaped us all into misfits unrecognizable by our community, abandoned because we couldn’t rise above our own misfortune.

But this year is different. It feels as though I’m on a precipice. The cliffs of time are crumbling beneath me, dragging me further away from the life I knew, the person I was, the son I had. I’m struggling to find a foothold to hang on to, to cling to the walls of these memories. I don’t know how to let go. I’m scared of what awaits me when my fingers tire and I slip off this cliff. Will he be forgotten for good or will I be further ravaged by the monster of guilt that has nibbled at my soul for years?

Nothing has changed yet every thing is different.

They, the world, the authorities on grief, they left something out as they dumped their sage wisdom of grief survival on me. They forgot to tell me the more joy I felt the harder it would be to remember, to cling to my son. The more memories I created, the bigger the hole in my heart would seem when fresh memories of my son failed to fill my soul. The more I heal the harder my heart bleeds.

I wish I had known. I wish I didn’t know now.

I’m tired of pretending. I’m not okay. I’m not fine. My soul shattered like a mirror dropped on the floor and while love has helped glue it back together, the edges are jagged and I’m not whole. None of us ever will be and the weight of this is heavy on my tired shoulders.

I don’t know how to stop loving my son or being his mother and I’m tired of only having two days a year to acknowledge he lived. He lives. In me with every breath I take. I’m tired of parenting an invisible child no one else can see but me. I’m tired of all the days in between his birthday and his death day and for every moment I have to push aside this boy memory of mine and live. When he does not.

It’s my son’s tenth birthday tomorrow and there is no boy to blow out the candles on his cake.

But there will be more tracks in the snow as I search once more for peace, for forgiveness.

My son Shale lived for four years, ten months and 17 days.

As of Saturday, August 7, 2010, he’s been dead for four years ten months and 18 days.

He’s now been dead longer than he lived. And my heart is having trouble coping with that fact. The reality of that date passing actually means little. Shale is still gone, lost in the ether of love and memory and our lives proceed onwards as though nothing has changed.

But a lot has changed in the time my son has been gone.

I’ve changed, my husband’s changed, my kids have been forever altered. The person I used to be no longer exists. She was buried beside her son and it’s taken me all these years and tears to claw my way out of the grief and find myself again.

Friendships have dissolved and new ones created, family members have moved on, a child has been lost, a new one has been found. Our world no longer resembles the one we left behind when we said goodbye to our son.

But through all of this, he’s never been forgotten.

I worry now, as time ticks slowly by, his memory will fade into oblivion. I wonder if my children will remember their little brother when they are fully grown and have children of their own. I fret because there is no way I can make my youngest understand he has a brother he’ll never know. I wake up in a cold sweat still, all these years later, because I just remembered my son is dead.

I had hoped that the passing of time would mean this pain we carry in our hearts would lessen.

Instead, the pain is as heavy and cloying as a wet wool blanket, threatening to smother the joy we work so hard to fill our lives with. It’s the memories of my son which are fading. I can no longer remember his smell on command or immediately recall what Bug’s laughter sounds like. Time is not robbing the pain but instead thieving the memories his life created.

And I can do nothing to stop this process other than grieve the inevitable loss.

Will *I* remember my son when I’m old and crippled?

There is no expiration for grieving, I know this, but I’m tired of the sadness. I’m tired of remembering I’m a mother to a dead kid. I’m exhausted from saying I have four children when people can only see three.

My son’s absence has now shaped me and our family as much as his life ever did.

This past Saturday, I said goodbye to my son, again. I let him go. I promised him and myself that I would never forget him. I will always love him, with every breath I ever take. But I had to let the pain of his passing go. I can’t spend the rest of my life hauling this burden around with me, weighing my happiness down.

I can’t change the past. I can’t bring Shale back.

But it took four years, nine months and 18 days to say good bye to the pain and guilt I’ve harboured since I said goodbye to him in a darkened emergency room. A million wishes can’t undo his death and all the what-ifs in the world won’t help us heal.

I will always mourn my son and wonder what life would have been like if he lived. But for the first time in all these years, I finally feel at peace with his fate and mine, and feel like I can spend the rest of my life loving him like a mother should.

No matter how many days pass, I will always be Shale’s mom. And I will always love you, Bug. I promise. I finally understand, I may never have new memories with you, and the ones I have may fade like an old photograph, but the love I have, it is enough.