This is unreal.

I'm holding our son in my arms, and it's unreal.

Meredith and everybody has gone for the night and it's just me and him.

He's quiet, I think he's going to be a lot like you when he gets older.

He already looks serious.

I run my finger over his soft caramel skin, and he opens his eyes just enough for me to see the deep coffee brown that I loved so much in yours.

For the first time since you left, I smile.

He's gorgeous, Burke, he really is.

I continue to trail my fingers down his cheek to his chin, where your dimple has made it's mark, just as prominent as yours was, and I smile a little bigger.

Your mother is quite taken with him, and they're moving from Alabama to Seattle to take care of him so I can finish up my residency.

I know for sure with your mother spoiling him he's going to turn out just as stubborn and bullheaded as you were.

She was practically begging me to name him Preston, but I told her it was still out of the question.


You would never get that lucky.

I named him Xavier instead.

Xavier Michael Burke, and if you don't like it, it's too bad, because you're not here to protest.

Your dad thinks that you would've loved it.

Fine black curls adorn his head, and I run my fingers through them, soft and shiny, and I feel something I haven't felt in ages.

I'm happy, I think.

Or at least relieved.

The room is dim, and it's as if I can feel you standing in the corner, watching the two of us, seeing your family for the first time, and it's a feeling I can't push away.

Maybe it took him for me to realize that you've been here all along, watching me.

With me.

I don't hate you anymore for leaving me, I know that you wouldn't have missed out on this for the world.

I know that you didn't go on purpose.

I know that you fought.

I know that you want to be here.

That you are here- just not in the capacity that you want to be.

I promise to take care of him, to love him, and to encourage him to be everything that he can.

I'll tell him that I love him every day.

I still don't know what I'm doing, but I'll figure it out along the way.

I'm so glad that I have him, I have something to live for now, something to wake up for, a purpose.

I don't know for sure that you can hear me when I talk to you, that you're listening.

But if you are, and I hope you are, I just want you to know...

I love you.