I often look at my son and wonder if he remembers….

The consistent, rhythmic beeping of the machines, the strikingly bright lights never given a rest, the shrieking squeal of other nearby newborns fighting for life as our own little viking rested in his teeny tiny glow-worm den.

Does he remember when I finally held him for the very first time? Skin to skin, heart to heart…afraid I might break him? Nothing could have prepared me for the warmth I felt in that moment…and how badly I needed that. I truly never knew I could love something THAT much!

Does he see his father and I, returning throughout the day whenever possible, if only for a few moments?

Does he remember us having to leave……Over and over and over again…..back to an empty home….incomplete and terrified?

I imagine he can see the many faces in his mind from time to time. All of the strangers caring for him around the clock, poking and prodding incessantly.

Does he remember the feeding tube? Or how he pulled it out rebelliously and urinated on it one evening when we couldn’t be there? I hated that damn tube as well……and I couldn’t help but chuckle when I heard the news.

I’ll never know how he felt within those horrifyingly emotional few weeks…. or what he remembers. I can only fully grasp how intense my own emotions were at the time.

I can see us arriving at our little tree house in the sky that night when I was discharged from the security of my hospital room and sent away……sent away to leave our son behind. I can still feel the anger welling up in my gut…….

They wouldn’t let me stay…………………..It was the strangest thing arriving home without him.

A throbbing ghost of phantom kicking still occurring repeatedly in my empty womb. It was the same home we’d left…..but completely different for some reason.

To describe that feeling is next to impossible. The closest I could ever come is simply to say that it was as if there was this…….amplified silence. I could hear my heart beat in my ears….everything was different, yet the same….and utterly uncomfortable. I felt absolutely outside of myself.

Returning to that NICU, day after day, night after night with as much milk as we could muster…..it was as if when we weren’t with him…..we simply didn’t exist…………

I always felt slightly better after my time with him……..and I wondered if he did too. He was my medicine….it was the epitome of bittersweet.

Those florescent lights…………they were SO persistent……….so impersonal……….so damned PIERCING.

But your eyes Aidan. Your eyes saw me and we both seemed to know that you would only be forced to endure a short visit. You always seemed so relaxed about it all, so much more so than your father and I, and FAR more so than the majority of the babies we passed on the way to and from our short visits with you.

You’re such a trooper…….you scrappy little lad…………….

Do you remember?

Was there an amplified silence surrounding you too?