Release balloons

I saw this idea on the SHARE site as I was frantically trying to figure out what a service for a baby might possibly look like. I had no clue...


But this, I knew we needed to do - release balloons in memory of Grace.

So we've released balloons for Grace 3 times so far:
at her burial,
at 6 months,
... and at the year mark, this past November 2008.

It's one of those concrete things that we can see, touch, feel.

And we probably wouldn't have done it if we didn't have a 3 year old to placate.

Originally it was a way to make her feel a part of the experience. But, on the day of the funeral itself, it was a joyous moment for us in an otherwise devestating day.

For the funeral, we brought many balloons, and the children there (and there were a few) released balloons.

My friend N, who had lost her son to a cord accident 8 years earlier and was a huge support to us in the aftermath, also released a balloon for her son E.

We hugged and cried and let our balloons float off into the sky together.

This experience means that our daughter, N, thinks that cemeteries are beautiful, wonderous, celebratory places where people remember loved ones with trinkets, flowers, and treasures.

Stare it down

I'm starting - now 1 year out - to really face the bald-face truth: This happened to me. I lost this baby. She is gone.

The difference between now and a year ago is that I'm no longer fighting this truth. I used to say "I can't believe..." with a sense of injustice. I screamed this in the shower. I literally would find myself involuntarily shaking my head "no."

Now - with time, with counseling, with all sorts of coping mechanisms - there are days when I can leave it at just this: "This happened to me" with some level of belief about the whole thing.

I also realize that I can only imagine who she would be - I can't in good conscience think that I know who she really was or would have been. She is who she is -and a mystery to me in so many ways.

The comfort?

It comes right now in really being able to see how she is woven into our lives. I water the plant my family gave us in her honor. I see her picture. I have my necklace. Every time the wind picks up outside my house, every fall, will be about her. We'll keep baking our cakes. We'll keep lighting our candle. We have the pillow my grandmother made. We will soon have the angel ornaments on the Christmas tree.

This is not how I wanted it to be. This is the way it is. I hold both of these side by side.