Dearest Will,
To quote Miley Cyrus–which I try never to do–you came in like a wrecking ball. From the very beginning. I remember the morning I first found out about you, before the sun or your brother had risen, while I was the only one awake in the house because your dad was stranded in Florida at a conference due to our Atlanta snowpocalypse. I read the word–pregnant–and immediately felt the rush of emotions that happens on such a hoped-for occasion: the thrill of possibility, the hope of a joyful outcome, the fear of another loss after the one from six months before. Your brother was sleeping on a mattress on the floor of his room because his halo-clad head wouldn’t fit comfortably into his crib–your crib now. He had undergone spinal surgery three weeks prior, a few days before you happened. He was healing, though it didn’t feel like that, with the sponge baths and extra seven pounds on his shoulders and daily wound-cleaning. It was both a dark time and a beautiful one, and that’s when you showed up. You showed up in the middle of all that life with your own.
The doctors wanted to monitor me closely, and when my numbers shot up they had to make sure there was only one of you–that’s how you came on the scene. No way to question your existence. You demanded notice. As your brother recovered, then took a brief spiral down, you remained, somehow present even before your birth, somehow bearing witness to all of it, accompanying me through it, often uncomfortably, but undeniably. Somehow, even before you were, you’ve always been here. You started out by growing in the midst of difficulty, and you mirror your brother in that wonderfully hard way.
Oh but how you’re also different. Your dad and I picked names we liked; we only considered the meanings after. Your brother is the supplanter, and as the firstborn, how true that rings, how much he reordered our priorities and refocused our vision. Your name means Protector, and I can’t help but watch and wonder how that will ring true as well–how you might even protect him and accompany him. I watched as your first words helped inspire his. Now he’s surpassed you, but I won’t forget that gift. I expect I will see many more.
Where your brother is cautious and circumspect, you’re more of a Category 1 hurricane. I remember the moment and the kick in which my water broke, something that didn’t happen the first time around. You were ready. And all the child-proofing we did for your brother? Turns out that was actually for you, as you attempt to leap off couches and armrests and pool edges and everything else, how you stomp around the house and practically beat your chest with tribal yells only you understand. Then I’ll notice silence, and I’ll find you “reading” a book on your own. You are, like all of us, never just one thing. You have bottomless love tanks, always wanting to be held close, especially by your daddy, and your endless need for love is matched only by the imperfectness of what I can offer in return and the wholeness of the love that designed you and holds you better than I can.
My favorite part of the day is taking you to pick up your big brother from school. You stand in the window at the doorway and when you see him coming, your hands clench into fists of barely-repressed excitement, you emit a screech of joy, and you jump up and down when he emerges toward us. Your grin is reflected in his, and I hope I never take for granted the feeling of completeness I have in that moment: you were what our family was waiting for.
It appears, at this point, that your particular challenges–and we all have them–are not front-loaded like your brother’s. But when they do appear, God willing, I will carry the honor of accompanying you through them like you accompanied me and your brother and dad through so many in those early days. I will leap into fires with you as you leap everywhere now, as you teach me with every leap how we are both held by a love that knows our names better than we do.
I love you more than I ever knew I had room for. Thank you for showing me that.
Love, Mom