Love You Forever

Miles deployed when I was 24 weeks pregnant with Cale and came home the day before he was born. Talk about timing being everything, egh? Anyway, before he left we went to Barnes & Noble and both picked out a book for our babe. Miles picked Where the Wild Things Are and I picked Love you Forever. It's always been a book that holds a special place in my heart because it's always been a book that holds a special place in my mom's heart - it was one she read to my siblings and me when we were little. We went on to receive two more copies of it - I can't remember if it was when I was pregnant with Cale or Finn, but to this day we still own all three copies.

Back in August I ordered this picture of Cale's name beautifully written on an Australian beach by an artist and baby loss mother herself.

The picture was first posted on Carly Marie's website where I could purchase a digital copy of it. She had a form you filled out with your baby's name and birthdate and whatever else you wanted displayed on her site the day the picture was posted. I chose the verse from  Love You Forever.

“I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
as long as I’m living
my baby you’ll be.”

So I've always loved this book, not only for its connection to myself and my mom, but to Cale as well.

Well, it gets even more special.

A couple weeks ago a friend shared this blog with me in which I learned that Robert Munsch, the author of Love You Forever, wrote the book as a tribute to his stillborn babies, two boys, born in 1979 and 1980. On his website he explained:

Love You Forever started as a song.

“I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
as long as I’m living
my baby you’ll be.”

I made that up after my wife and I had two babies born dead. The song was my song to my dead babies. For a long time I had it in my head and I couldn't even sing it because every time I tried to sing it I cried. It was very strange having a song in my head that I couldn't sing.

For a long time it was just a song but one day, while telling stories at a big theatre at the University of Guelph, it occurred to me that I might be able to make a story around the song.

Out popped Love You Forever, pretty much the way it is in the book.

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So here we are, three years from the death and birth of our first son. We'll celebrate him tonight as best we can, but of course I wish we were celebrating with him. I wish I knew so much more about Cale. I wish I knew the kind of three year old he would have become. I wish I knew what his little voice would have sounded like or what his favorite toy would be right now. There's not much I know about him, but I know this much:

“I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
as long as I’m living
my baby you’ll be.”

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