Dear Isla...

So, it has been six months since you quickly came into, and exited our lives. I've been dreading today all week. It's been hanging there, like a cloud in the distance, getting bigger and blacker, filling with rain. I watched it, seeing it get bigger before me, knowing a storm was coming, and I simply embraced it. There is no running away from this. No shielding with an umbrella. You are real, you existed, you get all of me tonight. I honour you, my sweet daughter.

So we opened your memory box tonight, a Huggies box, no less. We brought out your ashes and cradled them. We placed the new lock on it, and each kept a key. We looked at your picture, and I cried for you. Pain I haven't allowed myself to wade into lately, I plunged headfirst into. I sobbed for you, and the life you should have had. Six months. You might have been sitting up. You might have had a bottle by now... I don't know. I do know you'd be in the cutest, frilliest bathing suit at the pool. You'd have had bows, ribbons, barrettes and curls to hold it all in.

We opened your mementos, and read the sympathy cards from loved ones. Now that a few months have passed, I can read the cards with the sympathy and kindness intended, rather than the anger at the lack of any real emotion in them. I mean, how empty "my thoughts are with you" and "keeping you in my prayers" seem after you've heard them a thousand times. I had thought that no one realized just how devastating and tragic this is, because the words all ring so hollow. I know now that in fact, they do know, or at least, can imagine it, and that's why their words are emtpy. They know how unbelievable the loss is. They have no idea what to say. What can you say? I don't even know what to say.

We lit the candles from the memorial. Evan's candle of hope too, it made me smile. The smell of your tea rose candle brought back memories from the memorial service, and that was difficult. I remember crying on dad's shoulder, just drowning in crippling grief. Unfathomable grief. I find I still say to him "can you even believe this happened? How does this even happen?"

My sweet girl, we miss you so much. I wonder if people who've not suffered a loss like this read blogs like mine and wonder how we can dwell... figure that they've recovered from the loss of loved ones, and why can't we mothers do the same? I might have asked the same question 6 months ago. But not now. I realize all too clearly just how much you have impacted my life, and how your short but powerful presence has changed me forever. I will never 'get over you' dearest Isla. I will always yearn for you, wish for you, grieve and mourn you. I will always know that life would have been far better with than without you. I walk with a limp now that is damage to my heart, irreparable damage that I must carry with me to my own grave. I walk on, like everyone else, but with a slight defect, some may not notice it at first, but there it is, just below the surface. I am vulnerable, yet strong for having had and lost you. I think my resilience must have increased, because I'm not dead... and you know how the saying goes....

So on your six month birthday my sweet angel, I wish you were here, I wish we were celebrating over a tender cuddle and a lullably, not through tears, an urn and words on a computer screen. But it's what we have. For some reason, I am meant to carry on, and in that existence, I honour you. I miss you terribly, I hope we are reunited one day. I love you my sweet beautiful daughter. Know how very much your dad and I wish you were here.


mommy.
xoxoxoxo