Thursday, October 29, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Pumpkin Patch
This past weekend we took Evangelene to the pumpkin patch with her cousin, Audrey Lane. They are sooo cute together...we can hardly wait until they start talking!
Sweet Elle Ava
It is so hard to believe that years have already passed since we held our daughter, Elle Ava. She would have been 2 on October 10th. And two years ago today, we said our goodbyes. I woke up this morning feeling empty....for today I feel lost once again on this journey of grief and healing. Most of the time, I don't allow myself to feel deeply about losing her; it just opens up my broken heart all over again. But for today, I remember and deeply feel our connection.
Elle was a perfect baby with lots of dark brown hair and had the cutest little nose. She had tiny hands and tiny feet. When we would visit her in the NICU all we could do for the first few days was hold her little hand and she would grasp our fingers. Every so often the nurses would let me take her temperature and even change her diaper (and they were smaller diapers than you can even imagine). After receiving the devastating news that she would not survive, we spent the last days just holding and loving her. Elle was so small, you could barely cuddle her like a normal size baby. We bathed her and sang her sweet lullabies and rocked her all night long. Our goodbyes were full of sorrow and final, with one last kiss. After the longest 12 days of our lives, Bryan and I left the hospital on October 21, 2007 with empty hearts and empty arms--we were forever changed. I can feel the love and loss just like it happened yesterday.
Our journey through the grieving process as a couple and as individuals has been grueling and even unbearable at times. It is understandable why some marriages don't survive a tragedy of this magnitude....but ours has and is stronger than ever. Through our loss we learned to communicate honestly and to truly take care of one another. And although I shed tears on her birthday and now today, I have truly stepped back into the light. I consciously made the choice to start living again and to embrace the love and life around me. Now, I remember my daughter with a deep, intense love, the kind only other grieving parents can know. And although I hate to hear it to this day that 'everything happens for a reason', I am at peace with the fact that 'everything is as it should be'....that I can swallow. And some may say, take from this journey/life experience a lesson. But to that I say, it is not a lesson that I am to take from my loss, but rather I take from it a gift of peace and true happiness. Elle gave me a spiritual peace and freedom that most will never find in lifetime of searching or even churchgoing. I can just be...I do not carry guilt or fear nor anxiety of what is to come. Thank you, my sweet Elle for the peace in my mind and heart and deep in my soul. Tomorrow, I will find my way back on to the path set before me and once again, not feel lost---For, each time I look into Evangelene's eyes and hug and kiss her, my love is sent to you, too. Until I hold you again.....I love you, my Elle Ava.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
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