My Son

Dear Cooper,

It has been days, weeks, and months since you left our world and entered our heaven above. Many things are different now but many remain the same. Your mommy and I have trekked through our days, "grinding it out" as I say often, and now have been blessed by your little brother. And yet on many days and nights, our thoughts stay with you. I am proud of the two completely separate emotional roads that we have traveled at the same time, and I am proud of who we have become in the process. I hope you are proud of us.

Oh, my baby boy. Please find peace in that no time will ever get between you and me. No days, weeks, or months will go by without you in my mind, my heart and my soul. This is the luxury I have as your father, that even though you may not be spoken of often in public anymore and maybe people do not bring you up to us as often, I am still with you and I am still carrying you with me.

Everyday I am reminded of you and what we are missing out on - the father son relationship that we deserved. The sunny days out on our lawn, the rainy days stuck in the house, and visits to the zoo or to your grandparents...I think of you. That is in my way, a way to take you with me so that I can help you experience these things through my eyes.

Your little brother is now 18 months old. How fast time flies by. There are many things that he does that remind me of how you would have been but most of the time I feel he is very different from you as he should be. He is his own self, my second born, and never to think or feel that he is to fill your shoes in our lives. No one does that and no one will. You will always be my first born son.

I don't believe anyone can ever understand the pain I can feel at times. The pain that I feel in my failure in being your father. This physical divide that separates us also keeps me from making it up to you. But I hope the spiritual unity I feel in my soul will help you understand the father I would have been for you and make you proud of me by the time my body is done in this world and my soul joins you in yours.

I know you are listening. I will see you again. I love you.
Your daddy.