I’m sitting here the night before Halloween thinking about the things that were supposed to be happening tonight; carving pumpkins with my little guy and soaking in every second of it, knowing this would be his last Halloween as an only child and making last minute preparations on our costumes so that tomorrow we could go out trick or treating. Instead I’m sitting here on the couch, looking back at pictures from the past two Halloweens that I got to spend with Grayson, knowing I will no longer get another Halloween with him.

This is the first official Holiday without Grayson so my heart has been extremely heavy the past week. It’s one of those “anticipation moments”. A moment you know is coming and you try your best to prepare yourself for, but when it gets here you don’t know what to do with yourself. You don’t know how to feel. Of course I’m sad, but I’m feeling a lot of other emotions too and it’s almost like your body doesn’t know what to think, because this is still not real right? They say the Holidays are super hard to get through when you lose a loved one, but no one prepares you for how you’re to feel. As a mom, all Holidays mean so much to me. Creating special memories with your little ones, traditions you plan to repeat year after year until your children are too old to want to do them anymore, that never happens right?

We were just getting started on making our memories. Grayson had just turned 3 months old prior to his first Halloween, so we didn’t get to do much with him. We lived in New Jersey and took him to Brent’s boss’s house since we didn’t know anyone else. He was the cutest little cow. Last year we got to carve pumpkins and take him trick or treating to see some family members. Brent, Grayson and I all dressed up as ‘lawn ornaments’ scarecrows and a gnome. He was the cutest thing I had ever seen. And there is something about that gnome hat, because we kept that hat in his playroom with some other hats for him to play with and he loved putting that hat on and wearing it around while he played.

I was so excited for this Halloween. Thinking of the best family costumes and all the memories we were going to make with Grayson. Grayson would have been 27 months old yesterday which is the perfect age for him to start realizing what was going on and my momma heart was getting so anxious to take him out and do all the fun fall things that we mom’s love to do.

When we lived in New Jersey, for every Holiday I did my best to create something special for all of the grandparents to mail back home to Indiana. I love doing things for every Holiday as a keepsake. For Grayson’s first Halloween we made cute little Frankenstein footprint cards and last year we did thumbprint fall trees, for myself on canvases we did hand and footprint crows and cornstalks so every year I could set them out as decoration. This year I was so excited to figure out what fall crafts I was going to have him do, but we never made it that far.

As I sit and type and find the words to explain how I feel this first Halloween without Grayson, I feel lost… almost speechless. There truly are no words to explain what losing a young child feels like. All your hopes and dreams of creating the perfect life with your child is no more and from here you only long for the memories you will never get. Which might truly be one of the hardest parts of grieving. You are grieving a loss, but you are also grieving the memories you will never get.

I, like many moms have Pinterest and of course had been pinning ideas on the perfect costume for Grayson, Brent and I this year.

I was prepared to make a costume if I found the perfect one, but this year Grayson got the best costume he will ever receive, a perfect little pair of Angel wings.

I never knew typing that last sentence would be as hard as it was,  I couldn’t type it for a good ten minutes because no matter what I would much rather him be here with me wearing the crazy costume I would have put together for him. I keep thinking about how perfect he is right now and I only hope Halloween in Heaven is as extravagant as I could make it for him here.

I’m so thankful for the two Halloween’s I did get to spend with my baby boy. I long for many more, but in my heart I know that he will always be my precious Angel.

I know from this point the rest of the year won’t be any easier as we still have two major Holidays to get through without Grayson, but like I have said a hundred times I am so thankful I will have these sweet pictures to look back on every year.

I urge you all to take lots of pictures during this Holiday season. Take pictures of those in your life that mean the most so that you will always have them to look back on. Give your family memories to talk about years from now. I’ll only have two years worth of memories to share, but the pictures I took will provide more memories than just the sweet two years we did have with Grayson.