To the Person who Gave me my Favorite Memory

Dear T-Bug,

This is not a letter I think I would want you to read. Luckily, it's a story that starts badly and finishes with a happy ending.

It goes back twelve years.

When I found out I was pregnant with you, I was barely twenty years old. Your brother was nine months old. It was the last thing I wanted, the worst possible twist of fate I could have imagined at the time. I was a single mother and I was barely managing to afford and take care of Aidan. I was in no state to become a mother of two. But what I did was pull up my boot straps and deal with it.

I hated being pregnant, not surprisingly. I've always despised pregnancy. I gained another 65 pounds on top of the 30 that I was still carrying from my first pregnancy. I did not take care of myself. I did things I am not proud of. I was not excited for another baby. "But I already HAVE a baby," I said to myself. "What in the world would I do with another one???"

I had to go off of my anti-depressants during the first two trimesters. And when I finally returned to them when you were fully developed in my womb, they didn't seem to do much good.

During my labor, I demanded every drug they could give me. I was disconnected from my body, from my pregnancy, and from you. I just wanted it all to be over and done with.

I breastfed you for two days before throwing in the towel and proclaiming that it was "just too much work."

You came home from the hospital and slept the first night for eight unbroken hours. You kept this up for the rest of your life. You literally slept through the night, every night, for your entire infanthood. You never cried, and when you did, your father and I would stare at you, shocked at the noises coming out of your mouth as if they were completely alien and foreign to us. You started smiling around six weeks and you've never stopped. You have smiled and laughed and have been joyful and content your entire life.

But for me, in those early days, I felt differently. Postpartum depression sucked me into a dark, black hole that I could not crawl out of. The walls within our small, cramped, darkened apartment felt like they were swallowing me up. Every task was exhausting. Aidan was just toddling around then, and every outing required me to carry you in your carseat while balancing Aidan on my other hip. I mechanically completed the daily baby-care tasks, but only because I had to. Most of the time, you sat in your bouncy seat drinking from a bottle I had propped up with a receiving blanket. When I look back on that time, all I see is complete and utter blackness.

And then, when you were eighteen months old, I noticed a pinpoint of light.

I took time out of my workday to pick you up from daycare and bring you to a WIC appointment. I'm sure they weighed and measured you and remarked on your size and your bubbly disposition. I'm sure they said, as everyone used to say back then, "Is he ALWAYS this happy?" I'm sure I half-smiled and said "yeah" and didn't think much of it. We left the health center and I took you to the grocery store to pick up milk and eggs. I remember pushing you in the shopping cart. I remember all of this with extreme clarity. You were babbling and smiling and laughing and I looked away from the shelves and into your face and I began to feel something. It didn't creep up slowly. Instead, it hit me full force. It was an immediate awakening and I heard my inner voice exclaim, "Oh my God! I love this child! I! LOVE! THIS! CHILD!" It was such a simple realization, but in those days, when depression had stolen everything from me, it was like a flotation device had been thrown out to me, right before I drowned at sea. Your sweet little baby ways tugged and tugged at my heartstrings until finally, you rescued me from an infinite void of despair and pulled me out of it.

I have done my best to repay you for this and you have done nothing but forgive me for my transgressions. You have loved me in the worst of times. From that single day, a decade ago, you have brought nothing but light into my life. You were, and continue to be, My Sunshine. Even as your feet have outgrown mine and you are finding your way into adolescence. You are my hero, and we are bonded. A year and a half too late, but bonded nonetheless, and you are the only person I have to thank for it.

Love forever and ever,

Mom (Rae)