I miss Camille So incredibly much.
This week was hard. There is something about the dual lives that shadow each other. The one where my daughter is here and nine months old- this is the life I am supposed to be living. The other where she has been dead for the same amount of time that she was alive within me. It makes my throat cinch up and my breath get shallow.
I don't know how 9 months has passed. It seems like such a long and short period of time. I wonder in the crazy of my mind (although I don't believe in fate) if I was ever meant to have her. Sometimes it feels so inevitable that she would die. Maybe because she is dead. I wonder still how this was to be the existence I would lead. I know there are no answers to the whys and the wondering, but the questions swirl in my mind regardless. It feels as if there was never a chance for Camille to come home alive.
I know this is not true.
I know this is not true.
My reality has shifted towards a life in which she is dead. It is hard to see past that now. I love her regardless. I love her in spite of it. Death may have taken her, but it can not kill my love.
I just keep going. It is the best I can do. I grasp fiercely at the joy and love in my life.
Telling people I love them no longer seems arbitrary.
9 months has passed. I miss her so much. The missing has not changed. I doubt it ever will.
About Me
- Renel
- My second child and our first daughter, Camille, died and was born on June, 30 2011 when I was full term at 38 weeks pregnant. I gave birth to my rainbow baby, a second daughter, on August 31, 2012. This is me trying to figure out how to be a mother to my living son and daughter and function in society after our tragic loss.
Love to you on this, and every day.
ReplyDeleteI think we will always miss our babies. Hugs to you.
ReplyDeleteIt is all we can do - "just keep going". But while we're doing that, we still miss them, we still long for them, we still love them with every ounce of our hearts.
ReplyDeleteI read a quote on another blog recently that I think is so right - "I keep myself busy with the things that I do, but every time I pause I still think of you".
Thoughts & hugs, Di
Nearly four years on, I can tell you the missing doesn't change. I miss her so much, and I miss Camille with you. All of them. I miss all of the babies.
ReplyDeleteIt is so unfair.
Hugs, nine months was a tough one for sure.
xo
Oh, Renel, I know exactly what you mean--feeling like you don't believe in fate, and feeling like it was inevitable. Nine months is a mindf*ck. At least it was for me. It was like a time when I felt like I should be better and most days I just wasn't. I was a miserable, angry person deeply entrenched in grief. Deeply. Remembering Camille with you, feeling the injustice of her not being with you, shaking my fist at the universe, and crying with you. Love to you.
ReplyDeleteNine months was terrible for me. It's that smack in the face that said he's been gone as long as he was here and actually, in my case, just slightly longer, since he was born at 37.5 weeks. That one was a hard one to stomach, because it sucks to realize that from this point on, you've spent more time missing them than you did having them.
ReplyDeleteI'm exactly one year ahead of you and I can tell you that the months do get easier to deal with. They're still sad and your heart will hurt, but you'll be okay at 10 and 11. It's the 12, the birthday, that hurts badly again, so you crumble a little again and then we just pick ourselves up again and keep doing. I don't know how we do it, but, we just kind of do. It's become routine for me.
I'm sorry that your nine months has come. I promise you that you'll keep going. Hugs to you.
"Telling people I love them no longer seems arbitrary." I really relate to that--everything seems magnified, even my love and happiness, because of Kayla. That doesn't make the hard days any easier though, because that's magnified too. Thinking of you and Camille!
ReplyDeleteFor so long I would say things like "I just want him back" - because I did and I do just want to have my baby back. But I'm saying that less and less and just missing him more fiercely and loving him continually. Because there's so little we should do for them and it's crappy and wrong and not how it should be. But we can continue to miss them and love them and it's doing the best with the cards we were dealt.
ReplyDeleteThis week will be 8 months since Liam died. I relate to a lot of what you say Renel.
ReplyDeleteI'm missing and remembering Camille with you.
Much love and light to you my friend x
You've been in my thoughts a lot lately as I remember Camille. 9 months was a hard time for me. I started a new job, I felt like I'd made it through the "worst" of my grief, but things were still SO BAD, I wanted so desperately to be pregnant, and I felt like I was failing at everything. I had a lot of good and bad days with no order to them, and it was exhausting. It's been a year and almost four months for me now, and I miss her still, as much as ever, but the longing that has gotten easier to carry around. It doesn't choke me the way it did. Hang in there.
ReplyDeletehugs - anniversaries are so tough
ReplyDeleteLove to you. I have those same feelings of the inevitable. As if, of course that was meant to happen all along. It's awful.
ReplyDeleteIt almost felt like I was playing "house" in preparing for Andrew when I did. Like I knew all along that none of it would matter.
Such a long time and so short all at once. Love to your family.
I dont think there is a day that goes by where my child isnt in the background of my every thought and breath. Love is eternal. Thinking of Camille. xo
ReplyDelete9 months was a really hard point for me. It just didn't seem real, still. Gosh. I can relate to so much of what you're feeling, and I wish so much you were not going through this. Lots of love to you, my friend. Thinking of little Camille today, and oh so often.
ReplyDeletexo
So sorry you've hit this horrible anniversary - as everyone else has said, this one is really hard...like there's a finality to it. I know what you mean about the parallel lives as well. I wonder what he's be like as a nine month old... it's so difficult to imagine.
ReplyDeleteThinking of you and Camille xx
Oh Renel. Oh I'm just so deeply sorry. It's such a hard time.
ReplyDeleteKeep going, keep grasping.
Remembering your beautiful daughter, your Camille xo
Love to you as you remember you precious daughter now and forever. Yes- it is all you can do keep going.. just as I know your love for her will always endure. Hugs, love, and light...
ReplyDeleteI can not tell you how much we are on the same page with this post... that past few weeks have been hard but this past week in particular has been very bad.
ReplyDelete"My reality has shifted towards a life in which she is dead. It is hard to see past that now. I love her regardless. I love her in spite of it. Death may have taken her, but it can not kill my love. "
Yup... exactly.
Love to you my dear friend! sending you peace and hope too. xo
I just passed the 5 month mark, and in some ways, the grief has snowballed.
ReplyDeleteI relate to the feeling that it seems like such a short, and yet such a long period of time. I also relate to having had a hard week, and I'm so sorry.
"Sometimes it feels so inevitable that she would die. Maybe because she is dead." I wish with all my heart and soul that we could reverse that cruel inevitability.
Missing Camille with you, and sending love and big hugs. xo
The more time that passes the more I miss my little boy. Thinking of you and Camille xxx
ReplyDeleteWhen I see the new babies in the grocery stores, I think that these babies were conceived when Nathaniel was still alive. Soon, the new babies that come will have nothing to do with Nathaniel. They weren't around when he was. At all. I'm looking at the nine month mark this month, too, and remembering the nine months I had with Nathaniel before he was gone.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree: I can't believe that this is my life. . .
But I am glad that I met you and know you here, and I wish that we lived just a bit closer. We could take a yoga class together. My practice is complicated right now (insert me kicking my yoga mat and throwing a temper tantrum and waving my fists at the sky), but I'm slowly, gently, bringing myself there.
I love the name Camille.
xoxoxoxoxo
Oh Camille, I know everyone has said it, but nine months is hard. It is that inside-out time. And that fateful feeling sounds familiar to me too. Who really knows? It is a big ask, to get your brain around losing your beloved daughter, and I think this is one of the side-effects - that our brains tend to reason that this must be how it was always going to be.
ReplyDeleteI love your words - that you are grasping fiercely at love - that is the absolute best you can do. Sending lots of love and thoughts of Camille. xxx
9 months! I honestly can't beleive it! I'm so sorry for your heart ache, I hate it for you! You should be holding laughing smiling your sweet Camille! Sending you love!
ReplyDelete