It was right there, I couldn’t believe it.

As I stood in the frozen food aisle at Whole Foods this evening, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I just stopped, dead in my tracks, and stared at the packages in front of me. Is this for real? So, I opened the door and pulled one of the boxes out. As I stood there, reading the back of the box, the tears just poured down my face, in the middle of Whole Foods. Even though the store was crowded, I felt like the only person there. I was all alone, all alone, just standing there reading all about Julian.

“My son, Julian, has joyously inherited this love of cooking and he has become my muse and greatest critic. It is said that by honoring  our past we shape the future. And that’s how Julian’s Recipe was born.”

It may seem trivial to many of you but I just couldn’t believe my eyes. It is a new product, never been there before, never ever seen a product with his name on it and now, here it is, right in front of me.

I don’t know how I’m going to handle Mother’s Day without him. I miss him too much. I am his mother. He should be with me tomorrow. I was the one who felt his first movements inside of my body. I am the one who saw his beautiful face for the very first time when he was born. I was the one who said his name for the first time and held his little tiny hand. I am the one he whimpered for when he heard my voice for the very first time in the NICU. I was the one who laid by his side as he struggled through all of those difficult times at home and at the hospital. I was the one who stroked his face and wiped his tears the night he went into cardiac arrest at the hospital. I was the one who held him for the very last time when his little heart stopped beating. I was the one who changed his very last diaper. I am his mother. I am his only mother and I yearn for my baby Julian every second of every day. It isn’t a happy mothers day. It’s a sad mothers day because I don’t have all of my children with me. There will always be a part of me that is lost forever and no one, not any one, will every understand how that makes me feel.