Too risky.

The reason I have not been posting is because it feels too risky to my heart these days. I like to be real on my blog. I don't want to sugar coat here like I am able to in real life. I don't want to paste on the smile here that I am able to in public. Here is where I bare my heart in grieving Eva. Here is where my thoughts always return to her. Here is where I connect with other parents walking a similar road.

And that smile you see in public? It's not always fake or sugar coated. There is REAL JOY in my life. It's just that my very REAL SADNESS is also there. My joy and grief; they hold hands, always...I don't even really know how to adequately express this hand holding to those who don't know, with clarity, exactly what I mean.

But this much is also true. In the early, raw, black, bottomless pit days of losing Eva I told people about this blog. I invited people to read it. I felt like I NEEDED everyone to know how heartbroken and devastated I was over losing Eva. As if the more people who knew about her somehow validated her life, and my feelings. I still am heartbroken but back then there was NOT ONE OUNCE OF JOY. Now I can honestly say that joy is back in my life. But I'm still sad too. No matter how much healing Nathan has given me. No matter how much joy I can have in a day, when the sun sets and I go to bed, she is still dead. And I am still rent with grief. My grief for Eva is not me living in the past. It is a reflection of her value and my love for her.

I digress, so, I invited people to read here. Yes I did. And mostly I have not regretted it. But in one instance I have sincerely regretted it. Someone who (it feels) has stood in judgement over me from Autumn (doesn't Autumn sound so much more lovely than Fall?) 2011 onwards. Someone who has never commented on my blog but who reads it often enough to make a remark here and there. Someone who should have a semblance of an idea how much it sucks to have a dead child, but who has never cradled the lifeless body of their own precious child in their arms (and I would not wish it on any of their lovely children). Someone who is the recipient of my in real life pasted on smile.

And this leads me to why I'm not posting so much. As time has (unfathomably) moved on from the most horrible day in August 2011 I have found that I just really don't NEED anyone to read this. It is not a reflection of my value or of Eva's if people read this blog or not. I just want to be real. I want other bereaved parents to see that I am still breathing two years later. I want people who truly care to read my blog. People who would like to reach out to a newly bereaved parent and have a semblance of an idea of what to say (or not to say). People who would really like to know how we are doing but not out of morbid curiosity...And I can't be real with this someone because they would not communicate with me in real life when there was a real problem.

If someone can be so hurtful in real life, it makes me wonder what they think in private as they sit there relaxing with their healthy children around them drinking a cup of tea and thinking...hmmm...let's just pop in and see how Em is doing these days....we won't support her in real life, but let's just pop in and see how Em is managing two years from the death of her child...oh my, she is not doing well...she is really not getting over the death of her child...how could she be so attached to that baby...Eva was only 10 months old when she died...oh my, her other children still talk about Eva...they must have an unhealthy relationship with their dead sister...Em must just push it on them all the time...oh, they're doing a Ride in honour of Eva...good grief, some people will take anything to the extreme...and they hang a stocking for her! Land sakes, they are really heading for the loony bin in that house...and a pink candle too...you have got to be kidding me...and she has Little J now, and Nathan, how can she still be harping on about Eva all the time...*you'd think she should be grateful for the children she has...*

For clarity's sake no one has actually said all these things to me all in one go. And I'm not claiming this to be real it's my 'twisted' imaginings of what I contemplate this someone to be thinking of me...so you can understand here that it's pretty darn hard to be real when someone who I think is thinking these thoughts about me is reading here and who I have to face in real life, with a clenching heart every time we cross paths...

A note to most of my dear, in real life, caring readers, I am grateful for your support, for your presence in my life, and, especially for how you mention Eva's name, unprompted...thank you.

*And, oh my word, I am so incredibly grateful for the children I have. So.Incredibly.Grateful. But my heart whispers in the background of the joy and the gratefulness...I still miss Eva...I still miss Eva...