For Harry on your 6th Birthday -

Harry,

Today you are six and just typing those words brings a lump to my throat and a feeling of complete and utter disbelief that so much time has passed since you were placed in my arms. All of your birthdays are hard for me as your Mummy, learning to accept that the years go by so fast, learning to let go and allow you to stand on your own two feet, but with you, our last little dove, it always stings that little bit harder. Perhaps it always will…

I’m not sure how to sum up your fifth year Harry, to put into words all of the wonderful moments we shared together, the adventures we’ve had and the memories we’ve made. Sitting here now, looking back on the last twelve months, I think if I had to choose just one word to describe you at five it would simply be happy.

From your fifth birthday in Italy to our summer road trip in the sun, you were the first to wake each morning and the last to sleep each night. Whether you were beaming with joy at your first Gondola in Venice, jumping waves in French seas, or exploring castles on the Island of Guernsey, your enjoyment of every day had no limits.

From learning to surf down in Newquay, when your lips went blue and you couldn’t speak for shaking, to spending the whole four hour ferry ride across the Channel with your head in a paper bag, you still managed to shoot us a thumbs up with the biggest smile on your face.

From autumn in Cyprus to Christmas at Disney, whether you were basking in the sunshine or wrapped up from the cold, your little face was a mixture of excitement, wonder and blissful happiness from start to finish. As we watched the sun set on Paphos beaches, marvelling at all the pretty colours of the sky, met your favourite Disney characters in Paris or uttered sleepy sighs of surprise when the fireworks broke out over Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, you could not have been happier if you’d tried.

And from winter in Ireland to glamping in Yorkshire, even when Storm Dennis hit us with full force, whilst the rest of us were cold and miserable and desperate for dry clothes and a hot bath, you were still be beaming away, catching raindrops in your mouth, splashing in puddles and laughing at how loud your teeth could chatter.

And even now in the midst of a pandemic, when your whole world was turned upside down over night, even without school, without adventure, without friends and family and the familiar faces you love more than anything in the world, you have genuinely never been happier.

For with you there are no bad days Harry, no tantrums, no tears, no sadness, no fears, no worries keeping you awake long after dark. And as much as I look into your eyes and see so much of myself physically, when it comes to who we are as people we are so very different, and every single day I wish I could just be a little bit more like you.

You are fearless and brave, self assured and unaffected; you take chances, leaps of faith, are bold with your decisions and defiantly stand by them. You share all of your thoughts out loud, right there in the moment without hesitation, and are brutally honest to a tee. And you genuinely believe that there is nothing in this world that can’t be fixed by a kiss and “huggle”.

You are the most affectionate little boy, always wanting to be close to one of us, to have your little hand in mine or your head on my shoulder. You shower your siblings with the same affection, snuggling up to your Meggy for a cuddle, stretching up on your tip-toes to kiss Eva, or wrestling Lewis into a bear hug and refusing to let go. The way you see the world is breathtakingly beautiful Harry and I think each of us are better people purely for knowing and loving you the way that we do.

You are dinosaur and Lego obsessed, literally a mastermind of knowledge when it comes to anything prehistoric despite struggling to read a book or even write a sentence. And whilst you are more than capable academically, the thing with you Harry is that there is always something else you’d rather be doing instead of sitting at a desk and looking at the world outside your window. You’d rather be running wild in the garden in nothing but your paw patrol underpants, building a den, playing a game, climbing a tree or out on an adventure with a stick in your hand. And in truth, I really can’t argue with that…

I always say that you were Heaven sent Harry, a gift from Joseph eight years after he left us, and I still believe that, I really do. When you hold my face in both hands to kiss me good night, or wrap your legs around my waist and tell me, “I’m never letting you go!”, I can almost feel you putting the broken pieces of my heart back together again.

When you hold my little hand in yours and skip along beside me, humming the Jurassic park theme tune or telling me about a Lego set you saw on YouTube, you remind me that miracles do happen every single day. And when I tucked you into bed last night and swallowed back my tears that you would never again be five, you reminded me that life goes on, that the world keeps on turning, that although life may not turn out the way we planned it, maybe it turned out the way it was supposed to after all.

I am so excited to see what this coming year has in store for you my gorgeous boy and, although I’m sure I’ll be sitting right here next year crying about the fact you’ve got so big, I will always be grateful that we got the chance to do it one last time with you. Our bonus baby. Our last little dove.