One year

I remember I HAD to get home. It was an instinctive need to gather up my hard-won little family, take them home, and wrap us all up in fluffy warm blankets. I needed those three other souls next to me. I needed to feel their presence so that I would not feel the absence of others so sharply.

That strategy has worked pretty well for me. Determined not to fall into the same darkness that consumed Sam's third year, I vowed to be present for Myles' third year...Sam's eighth. Despite my record-setting ability to suffer disaster at exactly the right time to ruin birthday celebrations, I committed myself to the HERE...to my boys who deserve more than tears and emptiness.

So here I am. This is better. It's not completely healed...but it IS better.

It still hurts and the temptation is still there to scream about the unfairness of it all. But there is nothing good to come of that...no point to all that wasted effort. It is much better to hold my little family close and celebrate this life...this being alive.

I don't really know what day to observe. The 8th was the day we knew for certain it was over. The 11th is the day my body was finally forced to give up its last deadbaby hostage. Neither is really cause for observance. They're both kind of morbid if you really think about it. And honestly, I have no real interest in either day.

I do miss the dream of the Little Bug...of what might have been. Surely something like this might have destroyed me if there hadn't been little miracles intertwined with the disasters. But I can see now how the miracles have saved me. And so I owe them something more...something better. And that is what I will give them.

So I take out the memory for a brief bit. Dust it off and look at it. And then put it away like a collectible on a shelf for another year. Then I turn out the light, climb in bed, wrap the blankets around the four of us, and vow to keep the true darkness from taking over ever again.

Because of what's coming

I was fine. FINE. We had a little disagreement that was NORMAL. But Steve asked me if I was being a little oversensitive, "...because of the date...because of what's...you know...coming up."

My response? I hadn't even thought of that!

And it's true, I hadn't.

And then I went on a deadbabymama weekend with some of the lovely ladies I'm fortunate enough to call friends as a result of my reproductive disasters. It was a nice weekend despite the fact that I was sick throughout (and am still sick two weeks later). It was good to be in their company. But I was uncomfortable with the emotion of it all and I couldn't admit why.

And now I can't stop thinking about IT.

April and May...filled with dates of horror.

Our baby died a year ago this week.

It seems so long ago...and just yesterday...all at the same time.

This is an amazing post over at Glow in the Woods.

I just really wish I could go back to not thinking about it.