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To This Year’s Kindergarten Teacher,

Your classroom is full. It bustles with kids in squeaky, new shoes and oversized backpacks. Some of their smiles are shy, their eyes wide and nerves evident. Others squirm and hop their way around the room, their energy radiating out through a little body that struggles to hold still.

“Welcome to Kindergarten!”

You’ve written each of their names on little placards dotted with star stickers. Over the coming year, these names will grow from mere faces into personalities and stories that you know and love.

But what you don’t know is that there’s a name missing from your class list this year.

You’re one spiderman backpack short.
One tousled-haired child with a mischevious grin is missing.

You don’t see him. But I do.

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I know you’re looking for answers.

For reassurance.

You’ve stumbled onto this blog after a quick Google search, desperately hoping for a miracle.

You’re praying that the doctors were wrong. The ultrasound results must be wrong — oh, please God, let them be wrong.

You’re praying that the blood you found on your panties this morning really is just “spotting.” Your heart is crying out that something’s wrong, but maybe, it’s not. Maybe this will all just go away.

You’re praying that the cramping will stop. That this baby would not be making its way into the world so soon — that your body would hold on for a few months longer.

You’re praying for a miracle.
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Dear Grieving Mama,

It’s October. The trees have begun to shed their colourful leaves and the smell of pumpkin spice lattes float throughout the cool air. For everyone else, this is a month about Halloween costumes, Thanksgiving turkeys, and trips to the pumpkin patch. But for you, this month signifies something a little different.

This is your first October after the loss of your little one.

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To my sweet, little man; my sunshine, my Alistair,

Today you turn two. Just the thought of it evokes all the imaginable cliches about babies growing up too quickly. Because although you still refer to yourself in third person, “baby” has now graduated to “big boy.”

This was a big year for you: learning to walk, beginning to talk. You’re getting bolder as you maneuver the equipment at the playground. You dance and run, tiptoe and sing. If there was a toddler edition of “So You Think You Can Dance,” you would win hands down.

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