Right Where I Am 2013: One year Nine months Two weeks Four days.

This post is part of Angie's Right Where I Am Project.

Right where I am today is a mixed emotional bag. Most days are better and I can see the light. My reading list is not only full of grief blogs but also includes a mix of homeschooling and healthy food blogs. 

And yet Eva accompanies me everywhere in my heart. She is still just as close to me as she was when tears would spill at the mere mention of her name but the pain is softer, somehow.  The love is there but the pain is softer.

Sometimes I miss the pain. Miss the closeness to Eva that the pain brought me. And sometimes, without warning, the pain is back. Wrenching me back to the black, early days of life without my girl. And the pain is welcome now. The pain tells me that I will never forget. The pain tells me that my heart will never be really whole again. I may be able to smile with my whole face now but Eva's spot in my heart will never be filled. The pain of missing Eva now is tinged with a slight sweetness for having been given the gift of loving her at all.

Today I can see and enjoy the sun when it shines. I am actually happy that the darkness of winter has left for another year. We just picked up flowers for Eva's Garden again and planted them two days ago. We planted a couple of varieties of sunflowers. Eva was our little sunflower and the two varieties we planted are called Miss Sunshine and Firecracker. Eva was both of those things. There is another variety called Big Smile that I'd like to get but haven't found yet. I also bought a box of portulaca roses for myself for mother's day.  Those portulaca roses are my favourites and they are just so Eva to me. Can't pin down exactly why but tending them is like tending my girl. Just love those roses. 

In the middle of writing this post I left for a farewell party for some friends of ours and I went through another first while there. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner...while there a couple I didn't know was holding their baby girl. I asked them what her name was and the response was 'Eva'. I was shocked and left the room. I cried in a storage closet for awhile but was able to come back to the party and eat dinner, make conversation and tend my children.  I knew the day would come that I would ask a mom her daughter's name and that, one day, the answer would be Eva. Today, at One year, Nine months, Two weeks and Four days without Eva was that day. Another hurdle passed and I'm still here, still standing.

Life is bittersweet now. Our rainbow, Nathan, has certainly improved our lives significantly but it is not his job to heal us, although he does. His job is to be a baby. To be cute, to cry, to eat, to grow and very importantly, to breathe.

His birth has created a paranoia in me that was never there for my other children. I check his breathing several times per nap and many times at night.

The pain is lighter but there are days or moments, that catch me unawares, in which I think it might just be less painful to take an axe to my chest and literally cut my heart out than it is to keep going day by day by day. And, despite that, yes, it is a lighter load. Really.

This is Right Where I Was last year at 9 months 21 days. I just re-read that post and, yup, I'm definitely in a better place this year.

Thanks Angie for creating this project.