Happy New Year

As this year ends, I can't help but reflect on the ending of the previous few years.
2004

Today I had a holiday with my son for a whole day...it is an absolutely wonderful day.

2005

I feel better about wishing someone a happy tomorrow than I do a happy new year. Less pressure.

2006

As this year ends I don't know how to make resolutions. I resolve to put one foot in front of the other and do the best I can. That's all I've got left in me.

And now 2007 brings a sincere Happy New Year wish out of me. I am ready to face 2008 with optimism and enthusiasm.

It's true, I'm not the same completely happy and satisfied person I was in 2004...pregnant and unaware of what fate would bring. But I am also not the same sad and hopeless person I was in 2005 and 2006...mourning the loss of our babies and unable to feel any happiness for the future. I am a new person who feels ALL of those things in a more proportional manner. None of them eclipses the other in what I feel now.

2007 has brought so much to our lives. Hope. Joy. Healing. I think it's important that people know we are not healed. Not by a long shot. We are not at some miraculous finish line where everything is set right...where balance has been fully restored. But we have found some healing. The start of a process that I imagine will last the rest of our lives.

And in that process there will be smiles and tears. There will be days when we eagerly step forward...and days when we "just show up." There will be days when we celebrate...and days when we mourn.

We are lucky in that we found the start of our healing in a new little baby boy. But we recognize that he cannot shoulder the responsibility of providing our happiness. And we recognize that there is still a vast emptiness where two other little souls passed through.

So our resolution for this new year is to take it one day at a time...one step at a time...and try to continue to heal...and try to eek out some measure of happiness whenever and wherever we can. We hope to find that in the love we feel for our boys...all four of them.

We hope everyone we know is able to find happiness and peace along their own paths.