“I’d never pictured every minute without you in it,
Oh, you left so fast…
Sometimes I see you standing there.
Sometimes it's like I'm losing touch…
Sometimes I feel that I'm so lucky to have had the chance to love this much,
God, give me a moments grace…
‘cause if I’d never seen your face;
I probably wouldn’t be this way.”
Today it’s been 11 years since Matthew asked me out on our first date. Every time I think of our growth as individuals, and as a partnership so much of it revolves around this day. This little girl, who we had to say goodbye to in such an unexpected way and time. I’ve been thinking a lot, about how far we have come from a couple of kids to two people who are still figuring out exactly how to be the best of ourselves. This song, ^^ it got to me today. The date, it got to me. The photos that I flip through when I’m needing to remember all that she was, they got me.
And I think thats okay.
I am SO much more mentally healthy, with in our loss than I was. I have coped, I have learned how to use our tragedy to help others, and to give back. I have learned and taught myself healing, I have figured out how to have a ‘normal’ life and move forward. I can tell my story with detail and not bat an eye, hold it in..
I’ve learned how to do all that when I see it coming ( and I’ve learned to - almost always- make sure I see it coming) but today, I didn’t. I didn’t prepare for the way it would hit me when the song sang;
“Oh, you left so fast”
She left me, so fast. She was gone before I knew it - in the most real way that sentence could be read. She was gone. So fast. And Somedays I am still trying to catch my breath with that.
I was gone with her, so fast. Who I had pictured myself becoming was gone, and who I thought I was, what I wanted to be. It was all gone.
I was an empty shell of who I used to be, with an empty stomach to prove it.
And some way, some how.. this man stood by me. Through postpartum hurricanes and grief tidal waves he held on to me and we pushed through to the other side. We both have things, and worlds of work to do on ourselves but we aren’t the people we were before.
“Sometimes I feel that I'm so lucky,
to have had the chance,
to love this much
God, give me a moments grace…
‘cause if I’d never seen your face;
I probably wouldn’t be this way.”
I’ll feel lucky, for the rest of my life that we had a chance to love her that much. And I feel lucky that loving her this much, lead us to be better people, better parents better spouses. If I hadn’t gotten pregnant with Leeona, I don’t know where we would have ended up. I don’t know who we would have grown into. But I do know that she made me “me” and mom, and who I am now, and she made Matt a Dad and who he is now.
I’m thankful to all the grace ever given to me during that time - lord knows I needed it. I’m thankful that I saw her face, and that she made me this way. Even if today it’s a mess, and a broken heart that can’t be reined in.
I miss my daughter, and the life we could have lead together, the sister she would be to her Brother… And today, I’m not able to hold it all in. Tonight, I’m not able to act, like I have ‘healed’ I’m not able to pretend that it’s not hard.
So hears to 11 years of love, and loss. Happiness, sorrow, growth, falling down and standing up.
I’m thankful to her, that “I am this way” and that we are this way, and that we are still figuring this out after 11 years.
