Right Where I am 2012: 9 months 21days.

A fellow mother of a dead baby started this last year. Of course, last year we still had Eva. I didn't know about Angie's  Right Where I am project and I had no idea the heartache that was just looming over the horizon. After Eva died I often read some of the posts written last year that had the same dates of where I was at. 3 months 6 days, 5 months 4days,7 months, 14 days etc.etc...They were 'good' for me. I hope this can be 'good' for someone else.

Right Where I am: At 9 months 21days I am still grieving hard. I have cried every single day since her death except one. I distinctly remember that there was one day when I didn't cry. I still missed her like crazy but maybe I just had cried so many gallons that there was one day where the well had run dry before more tears could come. Sometimes I wonder if I could measure my tears, how many gallons there really would be. Or does it just feel like gallons...and really is only a litre or two.

It is the beginning of summer here and I'm having a really hard time being outside. I see Eva walking in the grass whenever we are outside. Somehow, it was easier in the darkness of the winter. Like the darkness outside matched the darkness within me. Now everyone is so cheery and so damn happy with the sun and the flowers and even I enjoy the sun sometimes. But it is hard, because the weather no longer matches my mood and I feel left behind, again. It sucks. And also I feel the heaviness of Eva's sickness approaching.  Every day I think back to what I was doing this time last year. And I know that coming soon, this time last year I was in ER with our baby. It's like a cloud of misery that I know is coming and is weighing me down. 

Today, however, it's raining and that's a bit of a relief. When I was a kid I thought that rain was God crying. Now it feels even more  true. God is crying with me. However, there is one good thing about summer and the rain that comes with it too...and that is a small memorial garden we planted for our little girl. A rock with her name on it in the middle with flowers that the kids picked at the greenhouse planted all around. It's a nice place to sit outside and think of my sweetheart. I've never been a real flower fan, preferring to grow useful veggies instead of flowers but this is another gift from Eva: growing beautiful flowers for her. She was always our smiley little sunflower. And now sunflowers are growing in her garden.

I very much feel like the 'other person'. You know who they are...the people bad things happen to. The 'not us' people. As one mama put it...the statistical anomaly that took the bullet so that everyone around me can breathe a sigh of relief. But one thing I've learned in this miserable journey is that bad things happen to everyone, even the me I used to be. I know that if we were ever blessed with another baby I wouldn't naively assume that the baby would live. That the baby would be healthy. Especially wouldn't assume that the baby would live past 10 months. I also have a strange expectation that one of my sons is going to get cancer or something like it. When they get scrapes (as farm boys often do) I always check to make sure they're healing well and there isn't an immune deficiency or something like that. I have become more of a pessimist in that I wonder what bad thing is lurking around the corner, waiting to dig their claws in.

I can tell already that no amount of editing or tweaking is going to make this one of my very best posts, but it is true. And I am not at my very best right now. It fits, in a way. Right Where I am at 9 months 21 days: Trusting God but...Still hurt. Still grieving. Still wishing. Angry and just plain not at my Very Best. I'm pretty sure I'll never be at my Very Best ever again though.

I'm going to go ahead and post this without over-thinking it. This is Right Where I Am. Today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Right Where I am at 9 months 21 days.