Dear Hercules,

Your oldest brother came home from school yesterday and cried in my arms. We had a hard time figuring out how to explain to him what had happened. The first thing he wanted to know is if I had picked something up. He was worried that I had done something or someone had done something wrong and that's why you wouldn't ever be coming home to us.

It would almost be easier if there was a simple explanation why I'll never find you playing in our backyard with your brothers. A simple explanation for why I'll never know if you had my eyes or your daddy's. But there just isn't a simple explanation to give, and the simplest answer we could give Austin was the truth, as unbearable as it is. We explained that a million things have to come together to make a perfect baby. If just one of those things is imperfect, then things happen that we can never anticipate. In our case, your home just wasn't good enough for you. We tried to explain that as much as we love you, that God needed you for something extra special (even if our plans seemed pretty special too). We explained that we won't be able to hold or kiss you, but that you hold a really special place in our heart.

Austin was really upset, and we are too, that we don't really know what you looked like. Austin thinks you maybe had blue hair, like the sky. We only got to see black and white photos of you. Maybe it's ok that we don't have a clear picture of what you looked like. It'll be easier to find you when we need you.

We don't have a special place to visit you like most families who lose a family member do. We don't have a grave or a bedroom. Not a place that you loved to visit or a toy you favored over the others. We thought maybe planting a tree up at the cabin would be a nice way to give us a place to reconnect, even though we know we can talk to you anytime. I know I do. We were thinking of a willow tree. I always thought they were so beautiful. And I know you would have loved going up to the cabin. There are a lot of things for little boys to do there. It's a perfect place for rain boots and messes.

We talked about you all last night. We spent some time enjoying the sunshine and even took our dog to the park. Austin thought he saw you on the way there, and I bet he did.  He said you were way up in the clouds. He asks a lot of questions about what happened and I know that it breaks his heart almost as much as it does ours that we'll never be able to hear you laugh or see your first steps. We read the book that the doctor gave us, and it helped a little bit. The last page made all of us cry, and we decided from now on we'll just skip that page. I wish we could change the ending to our story that easily.

We are going to tell William and Wyatt tomorrow about what happened. I don't know if it will make any sense to them. They knew all about you, Hercules. But they are only 2 and 3, they probably won't grasp what it all means and they'll probably still pat my belly expecting you to be in there or yell good morning to you. It's alright, because you'll still be able to hear them.

I just needed to know that I was thinking about you a lot today. I love you.