Missing whom?

My grandma died when my mom was 15. I never met her.

Growing up, my mom told stories about her and I saw pictures, but most of the time, I didn’t really miss her because to me, it’s like she was never there.

Sometimes I did imagine what it would have been like if she had lived, how she would have come to visit, maybe taught me how to sew, and told me crazy stories from her childhood. In those moments, I did yearn to know her. In fact, my oldest daughter is named after her because I felt like I did come to know her and love her through the stories my mom told.

Missing Joseph is strange because I have even less to cling to. Nobody ever saw him alive except on ultrasound. I know so little about him. I don’t know his favorite color, or his favorite food, or his favorite toy, or anything else like that. I have brown eyes, but all three of my other kids have blue eyes from my husband. Oh, how I wish I could have known what his eyes would look like!

Something that means a lot to me is that I had a rear placenta, so I felt his movement early on and often. I feel like I knew him as much as I could have for what happened. He was a wiggly boy, and I couldn’t wait to meet him and see what he was like.

I look at his pictures, but there’s something missing from them. I know that they don’t truly reflect who he was, but they are the best we have.

I pray often that he’s doing well, that someone is taking care of him and telling him that he is loved. I can’t wait to see him again and hold him and tell him over and over again how much I love him.

Missing and loving someone you barely know so strongly is a strange thing, and yet so real.

Whom do you miss?