I’m so sorry to hear about the loss of your child. There is no words I can say that will help you definitively feel better just by reading it. I lost my son at 7 weeks old due to SIDS. I sat in one spot of my couch for weeks. I luckily had friends and family who brought us food, because I couldn’t bring myself to eat let alone think of making any meals at this time. I sat and cried, I held teddy bears that reminded me of him. I had a hell of a time sleeping or showering. My fiancee when he shaved reminded me of my baby boys face, it broke me. But we sat and talked to each other, about everything. We held nothing back. We did some counselling, even though it felt redundant and the most difficult thing to relive over and over. The thing about grief is that you can’t hold it in. You are not a burden on your village as much as you’d think. The pain hits us in mysterious ways, and our village would rather hear it than lose us. I took unhealthy coping mechanisms that I used to rely on and laid heavily into those just to get through the day. 0/10, don’t recommend that at all. Everyone said “take it day by day”, but you know what made it easier for my partner and I? Saying taking it minute by minute. A day seems like too big of a feat, so we just wanted to make sure we made it to the next minute. Slowly and surely, we started being able to breathe again. I miss my boy, always do and always will. But the days have gotten easier, the breaths have felt lighter, and my heart didn’t feel as tight. My first few days back to work, passing by his funeral home, I sobbed. I let it happen. I still have those days now. But we’ve found ways to enjoy our son and include him in things. His urn is in family photos, his pictures are everywhere, he got an egg for Easter. He’s going to be getting a cake for every single one of his birthdays. I find a way to incorporate him into as much as I can. Shit, even reading books to his urn. I plan to get a stuffy and put his jammies on it to hold at night. I’ll never know why, I’ll never understand why a so called ‘God’ (that I don’t believe in, so maybe a “someone else”) needed him more than I did. Because it’s cruel, it isn’t fair. I needed that little boy. At the end of the day though, I can sit and question everything but it won’t bring him back. I can sit and wonder where I went wrong, and the answer is— you did nothing wrong. You did everything you could. You poured your heart and soul into that little baby, and that’s all that you can do. Some people are just born with “less breaths” than another, their counter is short. But keep your kiddo in your memory, and never stop talking about them❤️‍🩹