Imagine me with a 7 year old.

Now that I'm out of work, I don't have to know the date so I missed it yesterday.  Today, I realized that if I hadn't had the miscarriage, little "Dex" would be seven years old now.

I can't imagine it.  In the middle of everything that's going on, we'd be having a birthday party for him, getting ready for him going to the second grade, and worried about making sure he had everything he needs with my unemployment and John's peak sales season ending in a couple of months.

But even putting all that aside, just imagining him in our lives.  How we would have told him about losing his "MomMom" (that's what her grandchildren called my Mom) 2 years ago, and one of his childhood dogs, Morgan, this past March.  And then little Rico coming into our lives...  I remember John saying how important it was for a kid to have a dog, and him jokingly talking to Casey and Morgan about how they'd have to protect him and be careful with him.  There's a quote like that:

A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down.  ~Robert Benchley

The funny thing is, Dex would have been much younger than his cousins.  When he'd have been out with Rob, people would have thought they were father and son instead of first cousins! But then, I got that with my sisters when I was little and they were in their 20s.

I remember reading Erma Bombeck when she talked about her miscarriage and how she always would think the rest of her life about what that baby would be like.  I didn't understand then, but since mine, I now do the same thing.  Every woman I know in the same situation does the same thing.  Like one article said, we mourn the future we never had.

But I'm not like I was, torn up and not able to discuss it. Now I'm wistful and I wonder, and I picture it quietly.  What would he have been like?  Of course, look who his parents are: the kid had a lot of strikes against him in the gene pool!  ;)

So, just a little thought: here's to Dex!  Who would have been son, grandson, nephew, cousin, and somebody's best friend.  And this is really odd to think about, someday maybe he might have been husband and father.

To Dex.