My darling baby boy.




I know you're there. I can sense you around me every day. It's a wonderful feeling. Your presence wraps around me like a warm cocoon, and I'm so very grateful, Harry, I really am.




It should have been my job to make you feel safe. I should be guiding you, teaching you, loving you. I wanted that so much. Alas I regret I know now that I could never have rescued you, the way that you have rescued me.




I've been thinking a lot about when we had to say goodbye to one another. It was exactly this time last year. August 4th 2008 in a little hospital room in Peterborough. You laid peacefully in your crib. Your tiny head barely bigger than the single yellow rose that lay by your side. I left you sleeping, of course your soul had already gone and the image that haunts me now is just that of your little shell.




Walking away, down the corridor, whilst my son slept in a little crib in a room all by himself was the hardest thing I've ever had to do Harry, and I'll never forget the emptiness, the loss, the fear and the panic that I felt when I had to leave you.




I don't know why we had to experience that loss. Why you and I didn't get the chance to get to know one another the way that a Mummy and her child should. I still don't know what caused the problems you had with your little shell. I guess i never will.




When a life is formed, so too is a sense of hope. The stronger the heart beats the larger the hope grows. Thoughts of the future, plans, aspirations all begin to form. Yet for us those hopes were weakened with every hospital appointment, every ultrasound scan. Until, bit by bit, we were left with a very different future ahead of us.




I knew you were destined for great things, my gorgeous man, but I had just assumed that i would get the opportunity to witness your achievements. Your first smile. Your first steps. Your first day at big school. Yet fate had different plans for you. Greater roles and tasks.




That morning, a year ago today, whilst Mummy was in labour with you, a single black and red butterfly searched for an escape between the blinds and the hospital window. He fluttered back and forth, for hours, desperately seeking the rush of air to free him. Eventually, of course, he found it and off he flew into the blue skies. Some creatures are just meant to stretch their wings.




He comes back to visit me, that handsome butterfly. He was here, in our house the day we moved in. He once sat with us in a restaurant, peacefully perched next to Lorelei and I took a picture on my phone. I use that same picture now as my screen saver. Last week he was trapped in our fish-tank and yesterday he was sat on the wall outside my kitchen, watching me do the washing-up.




Every cloud, they say, has a silver lining. Well it is only very recently that i discovered our cloud is dripping with a silver lining so sparkly and bright it makes the crown jewels look plain. My silver lining is so beautiful and precious and such a blessing. My silver lining has my eyes, framed with Daddy's curly eye lashes and he is as handsome as his big brother Harrison and as amazing as his big sister Lorelei.




I see now that in order to give us the gift of baby Leonardo you had to sacrifice your own life and time with Mummy and Daddy and Lori. If we hadn't of endured the pain and heartache of losing you, our precious son, at the halfway mark during our pregnancy, we would never have been blessed with our second son, little Leo.




Bitter sweetness is the expression I think they use. So very bitter and yet so very sweet.




Harrison Connolly, my little love, you will always be with us, in our hearts, Mummy and Daddy and your big sister Lorelei shall continue to think of you every day and to pray for you every night. And your baby brother, Leo, shall never live in your shadow, yet shall learn of the miracle his arrival was and what a gift he was.




I've always said you'd be my hero Harry and boy have you done me proud.




Forever blessed,




Mumma x x x

Butterfly - M. Carey

I have learned that beauty
Has to flourish in the light
Wild horses run unbridled
Or their spirit dies
You have given me the courage
To be all that I can
And I truly feel your heart will
Lead you back to me when you're
Ready to land

Spread your wings and prepare to fly
For you have become a butterfly
Fly abandonedly into the sun
If you should return to me
We truly were meant to be
So spread your wings and fly
Butterfly

I can't pretend these tears
Aren't over flowing steadily
I can't prevent this hurt from
Almost overtaking me
But I will stand and say goodbye
For you'll never be mine
Until you know the way
it feels to fly