With a little help from above...

Yes, there is a spiritual being in me who loves to believe in something greater. No, my beliefs are not purely catholic and I do not "follow" a particular religion... If you are sensitive to spiritual beliefs different from your own, or discussions surrounding death and the afterlife better skip this post :)

I recently came back from a trip in my hometown to see my grand-parents and family during the holidays. I only visit about once a year and the visits are always very short so I realized while there, that I had not seen my baby brother's tombstone since I was maybe 7 years old or so. Shame. Not only that, but this year, he would be 25 years old so I thought he deserved a long due visit from his big sister.

About my baby brother:

His name is Thomas. He was a premature baby and deceased at the age of 2.5 months of sudden death syndrome. His death occurred on my 4th birthday.

I never fully accepted the fact that he passed away on my birthday. Not because he shouldn't, but because I always saw it as a sign and needed to find meaning to that fact since the simple coincidence explanation did not satisfy me.

Apparently I was extremely close to him. Giving him his night feeding was the reward my parents offered me if I had a good day. Several years later, when I told my mom I felt somewhat guilty of his death because of the "sign" of dying on my birthday, she thought it was ridiculous and told me she did not believe in such coincidences either an

d always thought he "chose" that night as a way to link to me to either offer me a legacy of his strengths or his protection from above now that he was an angel.

I liked that version very much. It grew on me.

So now, 25 years later, I'm pregnant with a baby that was conceived on my birthday and coincidentally, on my baby brother's death day. Another link or pure coincidence?

I went to the cemetery to pay my respects to my baby brother Thomas and decided if he had a special bond with me, maybe he'd have one with SweetPo too now...

Because he was a 2 months old baby, flowers didn't quite seem like an appropriate offering to bring so I got him a very nice stuffed kangaroo and got a twin for SweetPo. When I got there, I left one kangaroo by Thomas' tombstone and asked only one thing. I would love if he could protect this pregnancy and keep an eye on this baby. Be his very own guardian angel.

I hope he heard me. It was a much harder experience than I would have ever thought. Maybe the pregnancy hormones are partially to blame for those tears that kept running down my cheeks...

Now I have another stuffed kangaroo that sits quietly among SweetPo's belongings, reminiscent of the sinless uncle he will never get to meet but who might be watching over him for all his life...