A Letter.

Hello, my sweet baby girl.

It’s been awhile.

It’s been crazy. Things have gotten away from me, and I’m sorry.

That doesn’t mean that I haven’t thought of you. I have not forgotten you. I still speak your name. I still sing your song. I still let the tears fall at times.

It has been 629 days since I last saw your face. 1 year, 8 months, 20 days. And I have felt your absence each one of those days.

So much has changed. You have a little brother. He looks just like you…I can’t get over it. I sit on the couch often at night and blink back tears as I look between your photo and his face. He’s 8 months old and brings so much joy into our lives. You would adore him. He’s teaching me how to be a mother…as best as he can. This wasn’t meant to be his job but he’s doing his best to make you proud. I know he was always meant to be ours too…but he’s with us a little sooner now than if you had stayed.

Little H is such an even tempered boy. He is like Daddy that way. They anchor me when I suddenly launch into an emotionally charged tizzy. He is so good. But I believe that you would have been much more like me. I feel that you would have been my wild girl, brimming over with life and and adventure and an unbreakable spirit. I know you would have challenged boundaries…and my patience at times. You would have reminded me of what it is to live with all that you are.

I know exactly how your brother would have watched you, ever observing, always in awe of his big sister. You would dress him up, and you would at times allow him into your tea parties. He would giggle and drool and love every moment of your attention. You would teach him how to give nice pets to your puppy and not pull her tail…and to stay away from the fluffy dog since she is a little cranky being so old. He would giggle as you twirled and laughed showing him a new dress, or new shoes, or a new dance you made up. You would talk, and talk, and talk, and talk…and he would listen with his inquisitive smile.

When he cries, sometimes I imagine I feel you rush past me to check on him before I can reach his crib. I imagine you singing him songs when you thought he was frightened, and how he would quiet to listen as you held him close. I know the look he would give you, cheeks wet, eyes wide, crooked half smile as he found rest in your voice. Blue eyes gazing into blue eyes.

I miss you every single day. My heart aches for your pigtails, sloppy kisses, and warm hugs. I wish there had been time with you…I desperately wish. But soon, one day, we will again be together, hearts beating as one. One day I will get to say hello and never again goodbye.

Tell all that we love and miss them as well. Be sure to show them your favorite parts of heaven, but save a special part for me.

With all the love that I posses –

Mommy

358 Days Ago

How? How is it that I am facing my dear daughter’s birthday/angel day in one week already? How? I sit here today trying to sort though grief that feels as fresh as if it just happened yesterday, 1 week away from her birthday, and 6 weeks away from our son’s scheduled delivery. So much has unfolded in these last months. So much that I haven’t even had time to catch my breath and sit down and sort through it all with words.

In a whirlwind…we lost Layla in the spring. I stumbled through the summer without realizing how quickly it faded. Fall came, and with it we found out we were again pregnant, just barely a month ahead of when we found out we were pregnant with Layla the year prior. It was bittersweet. I longed so deep inside to be a mother, but I felt angry at myself for moving on so quickly and replacing my empty womb with a new baby. I felt as if I had betrayed my beautiful daughter, and I felt guilty for feeling this way. The emotions just tangle up and mess with your heart and mind so severely.

The coldest winter that I can ever remember set in, and I suddenly found myself in an eerily familiar place as the year before. Familiar in the sense that new life was once again budding within me, but the pregnancies could not be more different from each other. It took me a very long time to begin feeling connected to this new little one inside of me, opposed to the instant elation I felt when I saw the positive test result with Layla. It’s not that I wasn’t excited, or that I didn’t love this new child. No, I believe I was afraid to let myself fall in love. I was (and still am) very afraid of the fact that my body had already betrayed me once, and it could very well betray me a second time. Each day he is within me is a threat to his life, but yet that is where he needs to stay for just a little while longer.

Spring is slowly arriving now and I can say that has completely changed and I deeply love this little boy who I have the honor to call my son. I have allowed my heart to open up and he has captured it fully. But the fear still resides, and has intensified. Especially as April 25th approaches…it only deepens. And suddenly I find myself wondering how to spend the day. I previously thought I wanted to focus on her by doing a barbecue to thank our friends and family who have been with us along the way for their support and love over the last year. But in typical me fashion I threw that out the window as depression set in and I want to instead run away and pretend that nothing happened. I don’t know what I am going to do. Stay home and weep? Go on with my daily activities as if it were any other normal day? Throw a big party in her honor?

I’m planning to face the day as it comes without expectation at the moment. We will for sure visit her grave. Perhaps release a few balloons and light a candle or two. When it gets warmer I will dig my hands into the soil the surrounds her body and begin again on her garden. Together, LIttle H and I, we will spend our time this summer with his sister reveling in her memory as we experience new life budding from her ashes.

For today, I thank God for his grace and gift of new life. And I remember that he too lost his own child on this day many many years ago.

 

#captureyourgrief Day 10

I left off on day 9. I didn’t finish. I haven’t even come back to try until now. I fell into a very deep and dark hole that has taken me a few months to start climbing out of. I couldn’t think about sharing her anymore. I couldn’t think about helping anyone else any more. I couldn’t think of anything but how much I hurt as each day passed. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years have all now come and gone and somehow it hasn’t left me.

Time. They say time heals all things. While it may have healed the initial wound there is still a burning scar over the gaping hole torn in my heart. I don’t quite understand how or why I recessed, but the last weeks have been hard. Harder than even the first initial days after we came home from the hospital empty handed.

Depression. It’s real. It’s scary. And it happened to me.

But I’m figuring out slowly that it doesn’t have to define me. I can have closure, even if I have to fight for it. And now, more than ever, it is important that I do. And so, in a fashion that is more like me (not abiding by set timelines) I will finish the project I started in a hope that I also find a little bit of finality in doing so.

Day 10: Beliefs

How long will my prayers seem unanswered?
Is there still faith in me to reach the end?
I’m feeling doubt, I’m losing faith
But giving up would cost me everything
So I’ll stand in the pain and the silence
And I’ll speak to the dark night

I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining
I believe in love even when I don’t feel it
And I believe in God even when He is silent
And I, I believe

Though I can’t see my story’s ending
That doesn’t mean the dark night has no end
It’s only here that I find faith
And learn to trust the one who writes my days
So I’ll stand in the pain and the silence
And I’ll speak to the dark night

I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining
I believe in love even when I don’t feel it
And I believe in God even when He is silent

No dark can consume Light
No death is greater than this life
We are not forgotten
Hope is found when we say
Even when He is silent

I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining
I believe in love even when I don’t feel it
And I believe in God even when He is silent
I believe.

#captureyourgrief Day 9

Day 9: Music

I thought this day was going to be the easiest of all, but of course, I was wrong. I have an entire playlist devoted to my little girl that I love to listen to whenever I am thinking of her. I also listen to it through over and over again when I am working on a bear. It helps me feel like I am embedding a little bit of the love I have for her in the heart of the bear hoping the family receiving it will feel it too. I thought I would be able to open my play list and choose one song to post here today no problem. But asking me to choose one song that represents how I feel about losing her is like asking someone to pick one emotion to describe their grief. It’s every emotion all in one. Each song in my list plucks a different heart string, each song speaks to a different part of my pain of losing her, and the joy of having the opportunity to be her mother.

So I chose a song that represents one that spoke to me particularly today. Tomorrow may be different and I may wish I had chosen a different one to share, but today The Shape of You by Jewel plays to my heart.

#captureyourgrief Day 8

Day 8: Color

The color purple is what always reminds me of little Layla. It was the color I chose for her nursery. It was the color we wrapped her in when she was born. It was the hue her skin was tinted when we met her. I still keep her soft purple blanket close by to snuggle my face in on those days when I’m missing her especially.