Audrey Roberts

Last night, I dreamt of him again. It's been happening for a few years now—my son, the one who never made it past that first, fragile day. I’m 46 now, and he would have been eight. He grows in my dreams, though. I’ve seen him at different ages, playing with his siblings, his face familiar yet different, like someone I know and don’t know all at once.

I remember the day clearly, the silence after his heart stopped. The doctors called it rare, something they couldn’t explain. We were supposed to be taking home a baby, not grief. But we did. We grieved hard, for a long time. I don’t think I’d have survived it without my husband by my side. We promised each other early on—we wouldn't hide it, wouldn’t let it fester in the dark. So, we talked. We cried. Even when the kids didn’t fully understand, they felt the shift in the air, the sadness that settled over us. Our eldest, he understood more than I wish he had. Here in Vancouver, Canada, our home became a place of both mourning and healing.

That first year was like wading through fog, heavy and thick. I was still trying to mother three children, to make sure their worlds didn’t collapse alongside mine. There were moments when I thought I’d break—when the weight of what had happened seemed too much—but I didn’t. I couldn’t. My therapist, my husband, they held me up when I couldn't stand on my own. We built our own way to heal. Some days, we don’t talk about it at all. Other days, it just comes up, naturally, like talking about someone who’s still here.

And then there are the dreams. They’re chaotic, as dreams are. But in them, he’s always there—sometimes laughing, sometimes just sitting quietly by my side. I’ve grown to love these dreams, as strange as they are. They don’t bring pain anymore. They bring a kind of peace. It’s like he's telling me, in his own way, that he’s somewhere safe.