One of those things...

I didn't intend to fall off the face of the blogging earth after the 1 year Anniversary. Truly the last month has been a bit surreal. I have found myself lost in the catacombs of my mind daily. Trying to remember. Grasping for how I was feeling, what I was doing a year ago.
How quickly we forget that which in the moment we think we will always remember.
Pain, there was a lot of pain, a lot of tears. A lot of brain deadness. It all seems very dream-like now. Misty water colored memories.

Summer is all but over, Labor day is staring me in the face and the cool mornings remind me of the passing time. The big kids started back to school last week and the littlest tests out her wings starting preschool next week. I have settled into a comfortable rhythm with my life. I mother, wife, housekeep and housemake. Then when those things are sufficiently taken care of for the day I work. I retreat into my comfortable studio and create while the house sleeps. It works, it is comfortable and familiar.
I try hard not to dwell too much on the fact that I should have a 1 year old nursing to sleep. I should be hanging freshly laundered diapers on the line, and soothing a teething baby.
Lucy wasn't meant to live. If she were, she would have. We are exactly where we are meant to be at this moment in time.
That isn't based on any theological beliefs of mine (if you're reading this then you probably regularly read my blog and know that I don't really posses any beliefs of that sort). It is, in my mind at least, a fact. It makes me feel better, as if there is simply nothing I could have done to change the outcome of things.

I feel like my heart has changed greatly in the last year. I would like to say that I am a more patient and understanding person, but for the most part I'm not. I still curse under my breath at the idiot in the drop off line at school every morning. I still lose my patience when it's 10 minutes to bedtime and the kids have fought all day long. But in small ways I am better. I lose my patience and instead of sending the kids to bed angry I force myself to cuddle them all close and read a story. Then no one goes to bed angry or hurting, everyone drifts off into dream land feeling loved.

There is a part of my heart that is always heavy. Some days it feels like it lives closer to my stomach. It is heavy with sadness and love. It is a comfortable feeling, and I find myself sitting and just feeling. Feeling the immense love I have for my dead daughter, and the sadness and longing for her life that never was.

It's one of those things about losing a baby. You never want to forget, you never want to lose that sadness. People don't understand. They say they want to erase your pain, or that time will heal you.
That is not what we want. We want to hurt and love forever and there is nothing wrong with that. We are capable of feeling that hurt at the exact same moment we're feeling immense joy.
It's really all I want, to always feel the sadness. But not only feel the sadness.
The passage of time has brought about a bigger change. One year ago I was grief. Completely consumed. But now that grief is a part of me and I have learned to live with it there, peacefully.