Heavy Heart

My heart is getting heavier and heavier as the weeks are passing and bringing me closer to the anniversary of our loss.  I realized yesterday how I don't remember last November at all.  I don't remember the little things or even the larger events, like my birthday and Thanksgiving.  I have found it surprising that I don't remember.  I could understand not remembering the days prior and the weeks following.  But not to be able to remember November 2010 is odd to me.

I am so surprised at the melancholy mood and cloud around me.  I have not 'anticipated' the anniversary to be good or bad, but the stress I am feeling is heavy.  I suppose part of it is that I am one whole year without a part of my heart with me.  I still feel the ache as my heart beats.  The emptiness there is as real today as it was then.  As a matter of fact, maybe even more so, now it is real.

I still can't believe I am one of those people... a bereaved parent.  I honestly can't.  I know I am, I am walking through this life as one, but, I am comfortable in this place.  And there is nothing I can do about it.  That is one of the hardest parts of being us.  We didn't nothing to bring us to this place and yet we are left with the burden of living it.  I know in life others have it harder and even worse than we do.  I know that.  But, can't help but almost feel sorry for myself that this is the reality I live. 

My Thanksgiving while filled with reasons to give thanks, was difficult.  My family wasn't together and never will we sit at that table together.  It is hard to 'give thanks' on a specific day in this fashion, when to me it is just another day and I am not particularly feeling thankful, since my daughter is not there with us.   I can't help but thing she should be on the brink of her first birthday, sitting in her highchair and making us laugh with her coos and self discoveries.  Instead, we go on with out her as though she was never suppose to be there.  It is hard to find the balance between remembering and obsessing about all the withouts we have.

In any event, I write because I am not sure what else it is I can be doing.  I could hope and pray, and I have, and I will continue to, but it doesn't feel like it helps.  Christmas is going to be hard. And December 19th is around the corner and I have no idea of how we will mark the date.

I remember

Looking back at the pictures at the cemetery when her marker first came in, I remember how happy I was that it was here.  I felt like the waiting for the marker to get in took so long and remember thinking it is 'finally' here.  I remember the ground being bare and without grass. I remember sitting there in the dirt and running my fingers through the loose dirt, wondering how close yet how far she was from my reach. 

Now it is a much different scene.  The marker is showing some wear from being exposed to the weather. The grass is grown in and with it came the weeds that I desperately try to cut back and dig out.  And now her grave is starting to look like every other one to the naked eye.  To all eyes but mine.  To me, she is special, that marker is special and to me it is like it was yesterday, and I remember.

Blessings

A sweet and dear person took the time to share this song with me.  I am so grateful.  Thank you Julie!
(Grab a tissue)

A Calling

In my life, I have always felt I was being called to something more.  While I could feel that pull, I could never identify that 'more'. 

In April 2008, when I was wed, I began to realize that I was suited to be a wife.  In October 2009, I became a mother and I started to feel the my empty cup, I'll call 'more', starting to fill.  While motherhood in the early days was trying and exhausting, it was more than I could have hoped for.  My son has filled my life with love and happiness.  Nurturing him was and is a delight and my pleasure, even though the exhaustion.  Knowing that his tiny, precious life, was dependent on me was a huge responsibility.  The pressure is immense.  But, as he grew and hit milestones, I knew I was doing a good job.  When I feel defeated as a mother, I look at him and his gentle nature, his ability and his carefree attitude, and know I am doing something right.

Still a nagging feeling remained.  What should I do, how can I do it.  What will give my life more meaning, more depth.  After all, one day my son will be a man, and I will be an old lady.  What makes some older people happy and others not? Healthy or ill? I believe the answer to that question is purpose.  We need to have a purpose.  Without purpose our spirit is week and can wither.  Maintaining purpose in life to me is key.  But, I still haven't found that purpose, that 'more'. 

Strangely, I since the loss of Gabriella, after the initial shock and numbness that is, I am feeling more whole than ever before.  I feel I have something to offer. I feel my more is my ability to nurture, love and give back.  All the things I have loved doing my whole life are things that directly and indirectly fall into these categories.  Why hasn't it been obvious to me? Why couldn't I have seen it before? I am to nurture, love and give back.  I am being called to service and love.  It is so simple and yet it took a terrible loss and for me to see it.  It took that sacrifice of my daughter in my arms for me to see.  It is amazing to me that she is the teacher.  That I pray to her to intercede with God on my behalf.  That she is the stronger, wiser one of us. And that she is the one who is guiding me to fulfill my 'more' and be the person I was meant to be.  My children both actually are my teachers.  They give me more than I could have imagined one person could give to another, and they do it with unconditional love and without judgement.  I am so blessed to have them both.  I can never imagine my life without both of them, Dominic in my arms and Gabriella in my heart.  I will always carry both of them close to me.

Writing

I haven't written in so long.  I tend to forget that I haven't written here on this blog, because I write all the time in my head.  So many things have happened and have been going on in my life and in my head since I last posted that I can't hardly start to talk about it all.  I mention this because if entries start to come in and seem to be out of a chronological order, it is because it is.  Some posts to come are likely to be something I jotted down as these months have past.

Now, with it just 6 weeks until the one year 'angel'versary of the loss of my daughter, I think now I must make an effort to write again on a more regular basis.  I don't know what to expect as this weeks approach, I only know that the simple fact that a year has pasted is amazing to me.  My heart still broken, the questions I may have once had, have given way some type of acceptance and frustration is fading.  All still, my daughter is gone and I miss her everyday. 

Am left with the sense of gratefulness that I can't even begin to explain right now.  The other day at an All Souls Mass, where my daughter's beautiful name was read out loud, the pastor used the phrase a, "terrible blessing." At the time I could absorb his message, now I identify with it.  This all has been a terrible blessing that you all have shared with me.  I thank you for sharing and caring.  While, I know the 'terrible' is easy to see, it is the blessing part I am challenged with identifying.  While, I can see it a lot of the time, there are times it is much more difficult and hazy to make out the good from the bad.  But, isn't take always the way in life? Making out the good from the bad. 

I want to say that while this was never the life I would have chosen for myself this is the life I have and have been given, and I am grateful.  Grateful for the blessings I do have, and grateful for the opportunity to help others.

My life is never going to be the same, nor will I ever be the same person.  I am okay with that.  I just hope and pray that the life I come to is one where I can serve and love.  I will take the good with the bad, but mostly I hope to take and give the profound love both my children have taught me.