CYG Day 8: Beautiful Mysteries

To have Ryan described as a beautiful mystery is fitting in so many ways. He is far and away the most beautiful thing I've ever done in my whole life. And the reasons why he had to slip away from us will forever be the greatest mystery in my life. 

And now, he will forever be a mystery. I don't like to spend too much time thinking about what he would be like now, if he lived. I find it doesn't help me. Mostly because I'm not good at it. I lack the imagination to picture how his features would have grown and changed. To determine whose personality traits he would have picked up. Would he have a stubborn streak, a hot temper, and silly personality like me? Would he be sweet, kind-hearted, and super-smiley like his dad? I don't know the answers to these questions and I won't until we meet again someday. 

But I have on occasion done this horrible thing, where I log on to BabyCenter's mom groups and scroll through what used to be my birth group with Ryan: the September 2015 group. And I try to learn about where he'd be right now. Would he be walking? Saying any words? What kinds of foods would he be eating? What activities would we be doing? I browse the photos of moms and dads out apple picking with their little ones, all Ryan's age, and think: "This is who he'd be now." 

And it doesn't make me feel better. It makes me sad. And it makes me so angry to read the posts from moms lamenting: 

"Where does time go?"
"My baby is getting too big!"
"I want my little baby back!"

No, lady. I want my baby back. I want my beautiful mystery to not be such a mystery. I want to know everything about him in the way that you get to know everything about your children. I don't want to pretend and imagine.

Ryan is a beautiful mystery, and every day I wish that he wasn't.