Ten years loom and as always seems to be the case, I find myself struggling the most in the days ahead of the anniversary - be it her birthday or death day. Today I just happened to this blog and read the first post I wrote after she was born.
I know this may sound strange…but I am not sure, in ten years time, that I ever read this post after I wrote it. Either my memories have been all wrong or they have morphed over time unawares to myself. I honestly thought I held her right after birth, before they whisked her away. I did hold her, very soon after birth - but not until after they did a few things first. I don’t remember the wires when I first held her. It is so funny what you remember and what you don’t. I do know, it all was such a whirlwind after that - everything after is blurs of hospital days and transitioning to home while still very shell-shocked but not quite realizing it. I wish I could go back and do better, not just so that I have three kids here with me now, but everything, even if I still ended up right here. I would be better at being present, less fearful and more confident in my role as a heart mom. Hindsight is a cruel saboteur, an opportunist friend of grief that can cut you off at the knees, even ten years out when you’ve become wise to the wiles of grief and you are familiar with the never-ending trails that your heart can walk on still, still trying to fix it all, knowing they lead in desperate circles and only drain your soul. I move through it and I do come out on the other side, but not without it winning for a little while and pulling me all the way under and flooding my soul with grief as fresh as the first as the first hours, when everything changed.
Here's that post...and how it breaks my heart for that poor mom, to know, not all prayers are answered the way we hope and pray...
