It's Christmas

It's Christmas...Our 3rd with Kai, our second without Camille and our first with Harlow. We have done a lot of things this month to try and make the holiday special. I think part of it is actually that I am thankful for the distraction, something to take my mind off the sadness on the inside of my bubble along with all the happy and joy and merriment.
It all swirls around like a snow globe: each flake a different emotion... drifting, settling, shooken and than falling again together.

I was not sure what to do about the stockings. Camille doesn't have one, I didn't buy one for Harlow...I guess I felt like it would be incomplete regardless of what was hanging. I got all panicky about it close to Christmas but still 3 stockings hang there looking very incomplete. I think it is the physical representation glaringly obvious at the center of the room that makes the stocking conundrum so precarious....because who really cares about a stocking right? I didn't hang them last year and I didn't hang them this year...Daryl did. So I figure ~like a cat behind a curtain with my tail and feet sticking out, if I can't see you, you can't see me...haha. If I just do nothing about the stockings they will just go away. My action was in-action. Way to avoid huh?

I wish I was buying presents for two little girls, but I am not.
I wish I was hugging three children, but I am not.
I walk past Camille's photograph
I stop and walk back.
The little votive candle is flickering
          but seems kind of dim in the day time.
The two little plastic poinsettias sit at the base of her ashes.
The sand tree from Australia is printed smaller than I wanted unframed near the back of the shelf. I got the photo too late to print and frame it the way I had hoped
...I guess there is next year.
She will still be dead
Same photo, same ashes, same ache and longing.
I am holding Harlow, she is trying to fall asleep, I rock back and forth and look at my other daughter who I can not hold.
Tears and that throaty feeling well up.
I say to her "I love you, I have not forgotten you. I wish you were here, I am so sorry"
The apology always seems to be necessary
I don't know if it is a statement of missing or a request for forgiveness
...probably both.
It seems odd for us to be all alive and her to be dead.
It still surprises me that I have a dead child.
It is so unfair...especially to her. She is missing out on her whole life.

There is a lot of joy in the house today. Kai said it was "present land". He is thrilled with all the gifts and I am pretty sure he is hooked on the holiday and the elves and Santa. I smile at him. I love that he can believe in fantasy. Just as he can believe that a mouse may ride a motorcycle. It is magical and fleeting. I enjoy watching his fascination and pure aliveness. We did this last year too, but it was less enjoyable because it was so close to Camille's death.

This year is better because of Harlow, because of time, because grief changes.

BUT...

I miss her no less, I long for her no less.
I don't want to bring sadness to a happy day so I go upstairs and nurse the baby and think of my other baby who I never got to nurse. I cry a little for her and read some other blogs...try to connect to others who have lost and are missing like I am today.
Today is a good day. I am thankful for a lot, especially my husband and two living children.
Sending love, especially if you are missing too.

The Dog Movie

My husband is the vice pricipal of an elementary school. He sometimes brings home movies the librarian has set aside and thinks Kai may like. The other day I saw the movie he brought home. I start laughing and totally making fun of it. There is a Big O cheesey grinning mug of Richard Gere and a fluffy dog on the front. I was thinking...Oh brother a dog movie that I am sure is just filled with horrid cliches of joy about as fluffy as the dog. The movie is called Hachi a dogs tale. It is based on a true story of Hachiko a dog who lived in Japan.

What I didn't know is that this movie is about grief. I should also tell you that I totally cried watching this movie. R.G. finds the dog at the train station as a puppy and they fall mad passionately in dog love and are BFFs. You kind of watch them grow together in fast motion. The dog walks R.G. to the train station each morning and than at the end of the day goes and waits for him to get off the train. It really is very sweet what an amazing connection the two share. I am not ruining the movie by telling you that Richard Gere dies. He is a professor and has a heart attack while at school. Hachi goes to the train station to wait for his dad who never gets off the train. It is absolutely heartbreaking to watch as the dog just doesn't understand. All the locals tell Hachi that he can go home. The wife moves and R.G's daughter tries to take Hachi to her home but he runs away. The dog goes to the station EVERY DAY to wait for his dad. He goes to the station everyday for 10 YEARS waiting for him to come home. The dog can not get over the loss of his father.

I was sitting there on the couch crying because in some ways I feel like Hachi, I will mourn everyday for the rest of my days. I stand vigil for my daughter, the one who will never come home. I wait paitiently in my heart for Camille, but she isn't getting off the train. Everyone says to go home, she's not coming, but people don't understand that we keen over the grave of our children. We stand vigil for them in our hearts, we remember when everyone else has moved on. The world keeps going. Although I eat and sleep and have a life, somehow everyday I end up back at that trainstation.

That is how a dog movie mucked up a perfectly good evening. I see the world through a lens of grief...When I hear quotes, poems, philosophies, stories...I hear them with ears and process them with thoughts that have been changed forever by grief.

How about you?

Sweet and Salty

I remember last year, around this time, I was in the darkest of despair. I still felt like I couldn't breathe. I was in a very very sad place after Camille died and I felt as though my life would never get better. I wasn't sleeping, I cried constantly. I read blogs CONSTANTLY. I felt so alone. I remember finding a post on Kate Inglis' blog Sweet Salty. I follow her on blogger but honestly I don't read her posts all the time...but...there was this one post Abide With Me: A Walk To Remember that was so profound and I would read it over and over. Last month I went looking for it, searching through her archives so I could read it over and over again. At almost a year and a half since Camille's death I still find it profound and deeply moving. In light of yesterday's tragedy at the elementary school in Connecticut I hope this will be a read that will help someone's heart the way it has mine.

She recently did a TED talk and it is also amazing and so I am giving the links here so that you can read and listen as well.

Light and love to you all.