Sunday, June 2, 2013

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.



10 comments:

  1. I have yet to find another in real life meeting of a girl named Lyra. I'm not sure how I'd handle it...I think you did marvelously. Sending love and light and remembering Eva.

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  2. It's hard seeing another baby with our baby's name. I was at a baby group with my daughter and a mom introduced her baby Henry and I stared at him the whole time we were there. Then I felt compelled to tell her I had a Henry too only to move onto the awkward "How old is he?" question.

    I just read your previous post, too, and it is amazing how long after the fact you can run into people who knew you had a baby but didn't know he or she died.

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    1. Yes I stared at that baby a long, long time too.
      For clarity's sake. In the previous post she did know Eva had died but had heard we had a rainbow and thought he was a girl.
      Thank you for stopping by and commenting.

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  3. Thank you for posting this. I have often seen similar kinds of posts, blog hops but never felt ready/able to participate. You may have just inspired me!

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  4. When I read your sentence -- "The pain tells me that my heart will never be really whole again." -- I believe that you can be whole again . . . that maybe you were never whole to begin with that this is part of the process to becoming more complete than you ever imagined . . . that because of the pain you can become more whole than you ever were before and that through the heartache you can find true healing.

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  5. Thank you for writing this.

    My child has a rather popular name, and so I hear and see his name quite often.

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  6. I love the names of Eva's sunflowers. Just gorgeous. I just had to google portulaca roses as I have never heard of them before - what beautiful flowers they are.

    I like your description of the love still remaining the same, so strong, but the pain becoming softer. I feel that too as the years have passed, the softening.

    I have yet to meet another baby Georgina, it is a rather unusual name here in the UK. I have also never 'met' another Eva - although I suppose that I only know your daughter through your writing. That must have hurt and these things are so unexpected too. You can't fortify yourself against them as you have no prior knowledge.

    I am the same about hearing my living children breathing. I just like to check. I think I always will and can imagine myself sneaking in when they are grown up, just checking.

    Remembering your beautiful Eva x

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  7. Just want to say I'm sorry for your loss. Eva. What a beautiful name. I love what you said about your rainbow and it's not his job to heal you but he does. So true. Xo

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  8. I wish that none of us had to live in a world without our child/children. Eva's garden sounds beautiful. Taking care of the flowers makes sense to me - I somehow also equate taking care of our sons' grave to my way of taking care of them. Sending hope and hugs to you and Eva.

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