James and his Uncle Patrick The above picture is of my brother and James. My father is holding him. The band-aid on James' hand is from one of his last IVs. James has his port in this photo and fortunately he required fewer IVs after the port surgery. When I wrote that last sentence, I immediately began writing another. My mind spiraled from James' port to the chemo drugs he never needed that it was designed to deliver, to the TPN he did need his last few days alive. From there to me taking each custom made bag of TPN out of the outside refrigerator when he died and tossing each i ..read more

Two years. That's the number. Two trips around the sun. One and a quarter more than James ever made himself. People don't always know. "I didn't know you had kids" they'll say. I don't lead with it. "Hi, my name is Matthew, did you know about my dead son?" Conversation killer. But when they ask, I'll tell them. "Yes, I had a son. He passed away a few years ago." This answer is incomplete. Criminally so, but any explanation is. I had a son. I had a son born with blonde highlights and dark brown hair. He came in a C-section, sunny side up. He never followed the plan well. There was so much hair ..read more

More than anything, I still catch myself off guard. A full year has come and gone without James, but I still find myself expecting him. I keep expecting reality to solidify and become made of more predictable fare, that kind that does not give itself to daydreams of toddlers and walking, speaking little boys named James; something to whitewash away memories of cancer and hospital beds, ports and tumors splashed on display screens. I am surprised at Christmas without him. There is a palpable absence on my list of people to buy gifts for. I find myself looking wistfully at the toy aisles at stor ..read more

I should have taken more videos.  All told there are no more than a handful scattered here and there, cell phone videos hastily and randomly assembled in thirty seconds.  There was a video camera, but it seemed so cumbersome despite its point and click functionality. Just that one extra step that seems like one too many when a click of the camera is right at hand. The pictures are less limited. James' brief life was enthusiastically documented by first time parents and grandparents, his every waking moment a photo opportunity.  The number of videos, comparatively, is disappointi ..read more

This picture is from James' original birthday. On Monday, James turned two. He was born on a Friday. I almost wrote Thursday, and it felt that way. Kara's labor began shortly after midnight on Thursday and James was born around 10 the next morning. His hair drew immediate attention of course, a full head of brown spikes with almost frosted tips, blonde highlights caught in the light that enamored the nursing staff and passerby alike. Perhaps because of this, James became an exceedingly popular baby almost instantaneously. While other babies made do with single strands of hair or bald crow ..read more

"I know it's been a while, but..." People say that a lot. It's a clarification. When about to discuss something horrible, distance becomes important. Talking about the thing itself, with all of the reality that entails, is challenging.  There is not a "light" way to discuss the death of your child. It simply doesn't work. So people employ a variety of strategies to distance themselves. "It's been a while" is perhaps my least favorite. Because it hasn't been a while. That is not necessarily factually true. It has been over a year. October creeps up, and with it James' birthday. He would h ..read more

I should not have asked the question, but I did. All of our modern technology has put the answers at our fingertips, and I am sometimes unable to resist the temptation. It is not healthy. I am holding my phone in palm, sheathed in the plastic comfort of LifeLock. It's an iPhone cover that is meant to be waterproof, and it largely is. It makes for a neat party trick, dunking the phone into  glass of water, the horrified and reflexively wincing faces of the guests all turned towards you in sympathetic shock. Of course, this is not why I have the LifeLock. The intuitive appeal to me, despite ..read more

This is a prototypical smiling James photo. Eyes wide, mouth agape. His arms are likely flailing. James excelled at smiling. When I think of him, he is almost always smiling. I am grateful for that. There were many different types of smiles. You- or at least I- never really expect babies to be as engaging as they are, to come with personalities. Before James was born I wondered what exactly I was going to do with a tiny person who could neither talk nor move. I grew up in a relatively baby free environment, no cousins, no significantly younger siblings. I never baby sat or spent a significan ..read more

The day he died, I wrote that I was not ok. That was true then.  I looked at the post again today.  I said that I didn’t even know what ok looked like anymore. And I think that’s exactly it.  In this brave new world of dead children and broken lives, I do not know what it means to be ok in the same way.  I’m still not quite sure what a new, post-James emotional neutral looks like.  There was a time when I could wake up with some regularity and predict the contents of the day.  James’ death removed the axis point around which that settled world revolved.  The ..read more

This is a picture of James as he was the day before he died and on the morning he died. Peaceful, sleeping, and surrounded on either side by someone who loved him. He's adorable. He always was.  One year ago today, we said goodbye to James. When I think of it, even now, the memories are crisp and perfect. Too perfect. How could it have been a year ago? I remember a thousand tiny, horrible details I'd love to forget that rattle around in my mind, accusatory. I have read of other people who forget the details of the day, whose minds shelter them in some sort of protective haze and render ..read more