Irish Twins.

I sit here writing this as I watch you run around the house.  Caroline is at Kindergarten and Jackson is at preschool, a rare opportunity for you and I to be together alone.  I love this time to bond with you.  Yet we aren't supposed to have this time like this, Ethan was supposed to be here too.

You are learning to share things, so proud of yourself and your new skills.  You are beautiful Ryan.  I am so honored to be your mother, and thank God for that daily.

Ethan made you a big brother you know.  Well that's just it, you don't know.  You never will know what it's like to be a big brother.  Of course I'll tell you that you are one.  But people look at you and think you are the baby of the family...and you aren't.  Your "Irish twin" was.  Clearly I never had twins.  My mom's a twin, so I always thought it was a possibility - but it didn't happen, at least not in the traditional way.  When I found out I was pregnant with Ethan I did the quick math, you were going to be 14 months old when he was born.  Then the plans went to hell and you were just 11 months old.  That morning of Ethan's birthday I was terrified, oddly at peace, and a bunch of things mixed together.  None of it really makes sense.  But one thing I thought was - well Ryan and Ethan will be inseparably close.  Irish twins, awesome.

Somehow you never met your "twin," the one who made you a big brother.  The brother you were supposed to share a room with, use the bunk beds with.  The brother you would have taught how to climb up and down stairs.  The brother that would have been next to you in the car.  I wondered if people would have thought  you were truly twins in a few years, once Ethan had a little bit of time to catch up with you in size.

I see how you idolize Jackson and Caroline...and wish that you had the chance to be idolized by Ethan.  You were supposed to be inseparably close, yet you never even met each other.  Ryan you are a big brother.  I'm sorry that you will never know what that feels like.