Three weeks after burying my newborn son, I gave everything I had purchased for him to a struggling mother with a baby. For the first time since he died, I slept through the night. But before sunrise, dozens of baby strollers covered my lawn—and what I found inside them made no sense at all.
Morning light slipped through the dusty blinds in Noah’s nursery, casting long, pale lines across the crib that had never held him.
I remained in the doorway, unable to enter and equally unable to leave.
Three weeks had passed since my little boy died at the hospital.
His tiny clothes were still folded on the changing table exactly where I had placed them.
The packages of diapers remained sealed.
His stroller sat boxed beside the closet.
Thomas and I had assembled it once and pushed it down the hallway as practice before packing it away again.
Now Thomas was gone too.
A week earlier, I had walked into our bedroom and found him packing a suitcase.
“You’re really leaving me?” I’d said.
“I can’t stay here,” he answered. “Every time I walk past that door, I feel like I’m being buried alive.”
“He was your son, Thomas.”
He pulled the zipper closed.
“So you’re walking away… from him. From me. Two weeks after we buried him.”
He stared at the floor.
“I asked you to pack the nursery,” he said quietly. “Weeks ago. You wouldn’t.”
“It’s an empty room, Kate. It’s an empty room and it’s killing both of us.”
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