Dear Poppyseed,
I can hardly believe how quickly time flies. You would be turning two soon, and I would be getting excited about your second birthday party. I would probably also be stressing out about the “terrible twos” and what the new stage of your life would look like. As much as trying to ease temper tantrums are, sometimes I wish we could have navigated them together.
We are doing well. Your little brother is so smart, curious, and a little on the small side. We visit the library together and talk to animals at the pet store. He loves the outdoors, walking just a little too fast and precariously close to falling off the sidewalk into the road. He is obsessed with food, especially bananas and anything on my plate that he isn’t supposed to have. He is also very quiet and careful around new people but he talks up a storm when he’s at home with us. I wonder if you would have been outgoing like your Daddy or reserved like me. I imagine you would have been quite proud of your brother, and probably a little jealous of him in the beginning. I would have tried my best at giving enough attention to you both, and most likely failed a few times. At the end of the day, I would make sure to hug and kiss you each enough times that you push me away. Or maybe not. Maybe hugs and kisses would be your most favorite thing.
I think about you all the time, my dear Poppyseed. Anytime a stranger asks me if your brother is my first, I struggle with how to answer truthfully without diving into a long story in the middle of the produce aisle at the grocery store. I wonder how the two of you siblings would have played together, and how much he would look up to you (literally and figuratively). I even think of you as I grow my hair out from my signature pixie, wondering if your hair would have been wavy like mine or straight like your Filipino grandmother’s. The other day I decided to organize the spices in the pantry because anytime I needed an ingredient I had to go rummaging through them all, trying to find what I needed that hadn’t expired yet. I came across a little jar of poppyseeds, and I wondered: should Daddy and I have given you a proper name? When I was pregnant with you, an app on my phone compared your size to a poppyseed and we loved that so much, the nickname stuck. When you went to heaven several weeks later, you had literally outgrown that name but in my heart I could call you by nothing else. Thankfully, proper names don’t matter in heaven, so I am sure you would have forgiven me.
I still miss you and I still selfishly wish you were physically here with me somedays. I carry you in my heart, where the rest of world can’t see you, and where they can’t understand how much you occupy it. When I tell my story, sometimes people call you an “angel”, but I know better. Angels are beautiful, but you reflect God’s glorious face. You know no night, and need no lamp or sun. And what my heart can only imagine, you have witnessed that which God has prepared for us who love him. I dream that you are surrounded by friends your own age who left us here on earth when they were still little. The world marches on, but they are each named and are immeasurably precious in heaven’s eyes.
Dearest Poppyseed, in the midst of eternity, I know that you are way too busy singing and enjoying God’s presence to read all of this. So, let me just say, I love you, I miss you, and if you get a chance, save me a seat by your side.
Until then,
Your Mama
Libby Bundrick is a stay at home mom, part time photographer, and aspiring blogger at www.libbyonlife.com. She loves her family, spicy Thai food, Harry Potter, and rainy days.
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