One Year Ago

In all honesty, remembering the anniversaries of the deaths of your two children separated by 2 days is way harder than I thought it would be.

It's been 7 years since Eric was with us and today, it is one year since we had our sweet little Ava.

Sometimes, just getting through it is all you need to do.

On a brighter note, the bugs are doing really well with Ava's anniversary. I think that the harder day for them will be on Em and Lex's birthday. That truly is when they lost their sister. They only got to see Ava but a few times while she was hospitalized. That was mostly due to the H1N1 scare and the fact that they spent most of the time that she was in the hospital sick themselves.

I can remember the drive home after Ava died. I remember telling the bugs that their sister went to Heaven. I remember a couple visitors and making a Gingerbread House that broke. I don't remember what happened between putting the girls to bed and when I woke up the next morning.

I have spotty memories of the immediate time after Eric died. One that burns in my brain is of disbelief, emptiness and feeling like a failure. (How could I have a child that died?) After Ava's death, Allan and I had three amazing and wonderful bugs to go home to and to care for. For all my grumbling, they are the ones that keep me going. For that reason, I did not feel lonely and a hallow empty feeling after Ava died. I, of course, have a hole in my heart that is bigger than I can write about. There are feelings of disbelief- but not surrounded in embarrassment. It's more of a "Really? REALLY? This is not what I thought growing up would be like. SERIOUSLY? God are you SERIOUS? You want us to do WHAT?"

So we are incredibly sad. Always will be, I suppose. But in a few (seemingly LONG) hours, this anniversary bonanza will be over. We will have completed another year without our Fuzzy Monkey and the first without our Tiny Bug. Honestly, I'm proud of us. This really sucks, but we are still holding hands and walking where He needs us to go. Through my tears and my broken oh so broken heart I am saying, "Go Us!"