Angel Child

            My first son was born barely twelve months after his sister.  He was just shy of seven pounds, fair skinned and blue eyed, and cute as a button.  We knew we wanted to name him after his father and my father, Michael Jeremy, but that name seemed too big for him.  We called him Mikey, which suited him just fine.

He sat in his swing and observed the world contentedly as long as someone was in the room with him.  He loved to watch people move around, working or playing.  He happily cuddled when I held him, and grinned at me when I walked past him.  I clearly remember watching him look intently at a family friend, neither smiling nor scowling. But he showed a huge, toothless baby smile when I looked over our friend’s shoulder.  As tiny as he was, he clearly knew and loved Mom.

Mikey hated being left alone.  He screamed whenever we put him in his crib, so mostly he slept with us.  He lay on my abdomen until I was stiff from lying still enough not to wake him; then I poked my husband and he slept on Daddy’s chest for a while.  I was so tired, with a newborn and a one-year-old, that I didn’t care what parenting books advised and I did whatever it took to get some sleep. 

            My tiny boy had a habit of looking into eyes.  His grandfather commented that his eyes seemed much older and wiser, as if he knew more than he could tell us.  It seemed that he had not forgotten where he lived before he was born, and carried memories of God with him onto Earth. 

            Mikey died in his sleep when he was 3 ½ months old.  Officially, he died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, of SIDS.  I believe he died because he had work to do for his Heavenly Father that couldn’t wait.  He did remember more than most of us, because he knew he was going right back.  I am humbled and awed to have been his mother, and proud of my angel son.