January 19

I went to lunch today, which was another “normal” thing that might as well have been cliff diving. It was hard just to drive up to the area near school and the hospital, which is not something I thought of beforehand. Up there is a whole additional world of things I haven’t faced yet. The last time I made the drive we had dinner with George and I was still in numb shock. The last time before that, I was in labor. I have been facing a lot of things at home, but this was a whole different animal. It is excruciating to relive those moments or have a sliver of those memories creep it. I cried for the last 15 miles of the drive…and I guess it can’t really be more than 25 miles total. I was having sushi with Neecers, which I thought would be a great easy reintroduction to alien things like lunch, doing my hair, and seeing people besides Chris and Aaron. The sushi place was packed, and for only the second time in my life that I can recall (this first being Costco right after I came home from the hospital) I was actually scared to be in a crowded place. That kind of insecurity never happened before Mara died. I felt better after we were able to sit down and just have conversation at our table. Neecers was a perfect friend to talk to and our lunch was really nice. I got a haircut on my way home. It felt wonderful to have someone taking care of me and to feel like I looked nice. I will take every happy moment I can get. Hey look, it’s me, looking like a normal person.

January 18

Walking Aaron to school.

I went out to get some new pants that would be suitable for work. Maternity clothes are too big, my clothes are too small. A lumpy body is certainly a common post-partum problem, except that I have no one in my arms to show for it.

January 17

January 17th marked one month since Mara died. As I type this in September, it feels like a completely different lifetime, just like December 17th did. On this day in December, we were coming home from looking at Christmas lights and talking to my family on the phone. I had been having contractions since 4:30 and wishing she would come soon. She did, but our time together was much too short.

I had been dreading January 17th, the marker of the passing of time, and I imagined that I would spend it huddled in bed crying and hiding. But my good news is that I did not, and more importantly, it did not occur to me that I was not at the time. I did laundry, housework, yardwork, walked on the treadmill, and thought about Mara, but it was not until I closed Aaron’s door after saying goodnight to him that I remembered it was the one month marker of her death. At first I felt guilty, like I SHOULD have spent the day in bed, or at the very least in tears. But as I thought back through my day, I knew that I had spent the whole day thinking about Mara, like I always do, but it was not a day of despair, like others had been, and would be. Thinking about the night we lost her is still physically painful, as is the sharp ache of desire I have to hold her.

January 16

Today I sat around in my pjs, watched Star Wars with Aaron, and graded some things I had brought home with me the weekend Mara died. Might as well.

January 15

Another pretty good day. Ashley and Sarah and the girls were here too, because we wanted to do a family portrait while Rachel is visiting. The house was loud and rowdy and happy. Before all the photo adventures, I was taking my shower, and I became very sad at the idea of taking a family picture without Mara. The last time we took a family picture I was still pregnant, and we worked so hard to get my belly shown perfectly because we were trying to get a Christmas card shot. We got a good one that we used to make our cards, and the message on the card was about being excited to welcome the greatest Christmas gift of all. We never sent those, or any Christmas cards. They are still in my desk drawer. I thought about that in the shower today and about how I should be holding her in the family picture we would be taking today. I would have hundreds of photos of her already if she were here. I had imagined them all.

 

Here are some greats from today…including the fun goofy ones!

 

 

January 14

Today was completely different from yesterday. We had a full house because Chris’ oldest daughter Rachel came for a weekend visit. I stayed busy all day and did things that would have felt normal and fun in another life. Rachel helped me take down the Christmas village (I think January 14 is DEFEINITELY a record), we went shopping at Ikea for basement playroom furniture, and we went out to dinner. I thought today that maybe someday it will be possible to think about Mara and NOT cry. I need to remember days like today the next time I have a day like yesterday. The memory will remind me that it is right to feel hope for myself and our family. It helps to be around people and be busy, but I have to balance that with the time I need to spend alone.

Aaron fell asleep on our way home from dinner…but according to my records it was only 7:30 at night!

January 13

I had a horrible angry day today. Today I knew I had entered the ugly stage of my grieving. Shock had passed, and it was time for the tough work of feeling everything. I felt frustrated by well meaning sentiments from friends and loved ones who offered comfort by telling me that God has a plan, or that everything happens for a reason. It felt like they said those things because THEY found comfort in them, and they thought they might give me comfort too. I wasn’t upset at anybody, because people’s love and support made each day bearable, but I found no comfort in those words, and I was angry. I HAD A PLAN. Our FAMILY had a plan. Her name is Mara.

I used to believe that there was a purpose or a design for everything that happens. Through everything I have experienced, I have been able to focus on my own growth and appreciate the role each event or hardship has played in my life. But I guess you could call January 13 the day I changed my mind about that. Now I know that a child dying has no greater purpose, and it is not part of any plan. There is no silver lining. The kindness that people have shown us, the love and support we have received, the strengthened bond between me and Chris, the sharp focus of attention on Aaron, those are all good things. But they don’t make Mara’s death good, they don’t make it make sense, they don’t make it okay. None of it.

While I was out walking today in the clean and healing January air, I had a twisting collection of horrible ungrateful thoughts that raged around in my mind, and were hard to quiet. I felt like I had borne too much, and that I would never be able to recover from this. Why has this happened to us?  I want to be happy, I want my daughter, I want my life the way I imagined it. We are good people, we work hard, we are loving, and I want to stop hurting. I didn’t have these thoughts for long before I felt wretched and ungrateful. Aaron is fine, after the seriousness of his surgery, he is in perfect health and I am so grateful. I am loved and close to my family, and comfortable and successful and have the career of my dreams. I am not ungrateful or unmindful of those things. But my heart is surely broken. It is impossible to imagine that these overwhelming feelings of despair will someday pass.

I realized today that I hadn’t had a single nightmare since the day Mara died. I have a nearly lifelong history of awful nightmares, some have been recurring since I was old enough to describe them to my parents. I find it odd that I haven’t had any about Mara or her death. Instead, sleeping is my only true relief these days. It’s as if the nightmare is when I’m awake, where the worst thing that could possibly happen has already happened. My brain can’t make room for any more pain, so I get a break while I sleep.

I had good moments today too. I knew today that I would definitely go back to work eventually, at least to see if I still have what it takes. It was a decision of immeasurable significance. I am very afraid of how it might go. I’m afraid that when I go back to work and start being around people again, they won’t like me as much as they did before. I am so sad now. So different, and quiet and still and sad. The things my friends liked about me before might be gone, or altered forever. I am not the same, I will never be the same as before Mara died. What if people look at me with sad eyes forever? What if the people I love only see me as a shell of who I was, and miss who I used to be before Mara died? Well if they did, they would be feeling exactly the same way I feel about myself. What if my relationships change, and I have that grief to bear too?

I have no appetite. I love to eat, I love food, but it is now one of many things that make no difference to me, and that I don’t enjoy anymore.

 

Here is Aaron with a gift Chris brought home from one of my former students with a letter so moving that I cry about it writing this post in September. She told me that I have lots of children, and hundreds of daughters, and that they were ready to support and comfort me as I had done for them.

January 12

Sometimes…straight from the journal works. Here are my unedited words from January 12.

“Dear Mara,
Today was okay. Nothing more, nothing less. I woke up, did things, cried between them, and kept moving. That is really all I can say for myself.
I love you. I love Daddy, and I love Aaron, and I am trying so damn hard to be okay.
Love, Mommy”

(Aaron drew this picture today of a knight on one of his Christmas thank you notes. I thought it was so cute how he has the lines in front of the face like the eye guard from a helmet)

January 11

This was a really rough day for me. It was dark and cold and rainy all day and I wanted to be outside and see the sun. Chris and I haven’t been sleeping well, and Chris is especially exhausted from being back at work. I spent some time attacking a long to-do list I had been making for my maternity leave…I figured since I’m still at home I could at least accomplish some things. I saw a young boy and his little sister walking to the bus stop this morning and it choked me to tears. Aaron and I both had dentist appointments today and while the dentist had her hand in my mouth, she asked me that perennial harmless question, “Is he your only child?” It was the first time I had been asked that question by a stranger since Mara died and I found myself in the horrible position of having to decide how I would answer in that particular situation. With her hand in my mouth, and the sensation that my chest had been sliced open by her question, I answered, “yes” but I knew in that very same instant it was not the right answer. I had thought it would be easier to say yes that to explain the whole story to someone I didn’t know while having my teeth cleaned, but it wasn’t easier at all. It felt like I was denying my girl, and I knew I would never, ever answer that way again, no matter how awkward or inconvenient it may be to give a fuller answer. Now, writing this eight months later, I can say that conviction has been put to the test and I always say that I also have a daughter who was stillborn. It usually results in the other conversational party being stunned silent, then fumbling for words of apology. I hope that by breaking through that barrier myself I can help others to do the same.

 

 

(clean teeth!)

January 10

Today my parents flew back home and Chris headed of to work, and I slowly got Aaron out of the house for school. He was so happy to be at school he could barely be bothered to kiss me goodbye. As Aaron and I were walking, I noticed that the trees in the Prince William Forest were gorgeously covered in snow and ice, so I decided that my walk would be along Dumfries Road. It was my first day alone.

 

I felt Mara in that walk. She was in the cold air blowing in my face, and the snow sprinkles blowing off of tree branches that sparkled me to blindness in the morning sun. I became aware that I felt close to her out in nature. Spending time outside quietly observing natural beauty would give me great comfort in the weeks to come.

January 9

 

Today was Aaron’s first day back at school since Mara died. I was excited for him to get back in his routine and back with his friends, but I knew I would miss having him around. Everyone at Aaron’s was so wonderfully warm and supportive and I knew that he would be watched over carefully. He got right into talking and catching up about Christmas with his friends as if he had just seen them the day before. I was worried about what I would say if any of the students in his class asked me about the baby, because they had seen me pregnant every day and there were lots of kids who rubbed and hugged my belly on a daily basis and asked about the baby. I wanted to make sure that if their teacher had a way of explaining it to them that I had a chance to hear that and support it in case any of the kids asked me, but none of them did. I walked back home, grateful for the cold air on my face, but sharply feeling one of many coming aches as I thought about how I had been planning to make those walks back forth to Minnieland with a baby in a front pack. Instead of heading home to a day of baby bliss, I was walking home alone. I thought about that walk off and on all day and how I wished so hard to be making that walk with Mara…harder than I had ever wished for anything. I imagined that I would have lots of those days ahead, as we would keep realizing all the ways we were missing her. Now as I write this post eight months later, that was exactly what happened.

My parents talked to me about how sad they were to be leaving the next day and how hard it is to live so far away, especially during a difficult time like this. I read a little about Grandparent Grief, it's called "double grief" because you are grieving for your grandchild but also for the pain your child is experiencing that you have no power to ease.

I wrote one of many long journal entries on January 8, and like many from those days, it was addressed to Mara like a letter. I reflected on all the people who couldn’t wait to meet her and welcome her into their hearts, and the fact that now all of those people were grieving in different ways. Some people wanted to use her name and talk about her in a loving way, and some people didn’t want to talk about her at all. But even so, she was already loved by so many people, and I felt that the love others were ready to give to her was being transferred to us to help us through this horrible time.

January 8, and a note

Before continuing, I want to make a note about the blog. I started this as a fun and easy way to share some of our daily happenings with far-away friends and family, and I also got into P365 photos and scrapping. Daily ANYTHING is hard to keep up with…and even though watching us it may seem like our daily lives haven’t changed much, life has been completely altered. I started keeping an online journal so I could keep record of my grieving, and I’m so glad I did. At the same, I took far fewer pictures than any time since Aaron was born. Part of this is related to just feeling quiet and thoughtful and somewhat withdrawn, and part of it is related to how nice it feels to set down the camera sometimes and just experience something. In the past, I have made posts to reckon for every day of the year, noting the days when I had no photos. That has started to feel a bit silly to me, so I’m just going to post pictures for the days that I have them. You will see lots of huge gaps. But I would rather post what I have than stop this completely, and now that I’ve gotten over the hurdle of yesterday’s post, I’m excited to move forward with it.

*Much content from the months January-June is drawn from the journal I kept during that time and so truly reflects how I was feeling at those times.

 

I noticed today and yesterday how Aaron seems to have grown up so much in the past week or so. Maybe just a trick of the eyes or a trick of the heart, more likely, but it seems awfully noticeable to me. Just when babyhood is something I want the most, Aaron seems to be getting further away from it.

I sent out an email to the family today telling them about our morning in the mountains, and offering to send pictures to those who wanted to see them. I heard back from from everybody very quickly and I sent pictures out to everybody. It means so so much to me that my family is so willing to accept Mara as a part of their lives even though she’s not here. Auntie Kathy even said she was going to print the pictures of Mara and scrap them and I was so so happy to hear that. I think it will be a while before I can scrap the pictures of Mara herself, but I hope to be able to soon.

Elsewhere in the household, Ashley did a lot of moving to her new place today, with the help of everyone in the house. I am also looking forward to Aaron going back to school tomorrow. Taking him will be hard, and I know I will miss him sorely in my fragile state, but I know it's the next step that we all need.

January 7-Mara’s morning in the mountains

**this happened in January, I wrote the post in April during Spring Break, and now I’m finally posting it in August. It took a long time to want to sit down and write about it, and after I did I was completely drained and felt like I had to stay away from it for a while. Yesterday was our eighth wedding anniversary, it’s a special week, I’m feeling good. I’m ready.**

We got up the morning of the 7th and showered and got ready. I brought two dresses to choose from with plenty of things to layer under and over them. Chris was a little surprised to see that I had brought dresses. When I was packing, I knew that we would be taking a lot of pictures, and this was the closest thing that my daughter was going to have to a funeral or a service…and I wanted it to be special in every way. So I wore a purple dress, and did my hair, and put on jewelry.
The night before, I told Chris that I was very afraid about opening the box that held Mara’s ashes. I didn’t know what they would look like, or if there would be recognizable pieces of bone in with the ashes. Would some be stuck to the underside lid of the box because of static? If so, would some of them drift out on their own? How did the box even open? Were they sloshing around in the box? What if I opened it wrong and some of them spilled? I was afraid that we would get up there in the windy mountains, and I would open that box for the first time and be completely freaked out by what the ashes looked like. I didn’t want to cause something bad to happen to the ashes out of shock or revulsion and then not be able to do what we had planned. I had sat up in that small dark hotel room while Chris slept and kept looking over at that box, and I doubted myself and our decision. Did I really want to let those ashes go? It was her body, and we had have so little of her, and maybe we shouldn’t let it go. Maybe I just couldn’t. I know I have said this before, but…my baby’s body was in a box. It’s incomprehensible. Chris said that he would open the box and look inside at the ashes and tell me what they were like so I wouldn’t be shocked. He did that this morning. Of course he did. He can always do the hardest things with so much calm and strength. It turned out that inside the box, the ashes were in a plastic bag that also contained a certification of identity that we and the funeral home had signed.
We went downstairs for breakfast. It wasn’t any good, but we didn’t have any appetite anyway. We drove from Luray to the Thornton Gap entrance to Skyline Drive. Our plan was to head south and check out some of the overlooks I had researched. We stopped at Mary's Rock Tunnel Overlook, Hazel Mountain Overlook, and then Pinnacles Overlook. We loved Pinnacles, because it had everything we were looking for. There were two more overlooks to the south we wanted to check just in case, Jewell Hollow and Hemlock Springs. They were pretty, but we really loved Pinnacles, so we turned around and headed back north to just south of mile marker 35, to the Pinnacles Overlook. We saw lots of deer on the way and enjoyed the beauty of the mountains so much during our drive.
We wanted a spot that had plenty of space for us to walk down from the other side of the barrier wall and away from the road, as per regulations, and then a steep slope down to a sweeping view. Pinnacles Overlook had all of that, with an incredible view. It also had just the wind we needed to carry Mara’s ashes up and out over the beautiful valley so that she could be a part of the sky.

We talked a lot about the pictures we wanted to take of our special time in mountains with Mara. I was so grateful that Chris felt the same way I did about taking pictures. I had some distinct and gorgeous images in my mind of Chris and I with our arms outstretched with the wind carrying Mara’s ashes up and away, and I wanted very much to capture those so we could keep them. I knew that setting up the camera and tripod and releasing Mara’s ashes a little at a time so we could take pictures would seem awkward and staged, but we have learned through our experiences that you have GOT to take the pictures when you can. No matter how strange or creepy or morbid it seems then, it must be done. Even if we didn’t want to look at them for years, or ever, we would at least have them. But if you don’t take them, you will never have them. Chris and I were of the same mind as we prepared for the specific photographs we wanted. We took our time.
First, it was my turn to lift some of Mara’s ashes up into the air. Chris held onto me as we opened the container. We had opened the bag while we were still in the car so the wind would not swirl the ashes around before we were ready. Once we opened the container outside, the ashes began to swirl immediately. We both started to cry. Chris stood back at the camera and when it was time, I could barely make myself lift my arms. It was the hardest, most painful thing I have ever had to make myself do. The first time I did it, the wind shifted and blew some of the ashes back towards me, as I had been scared of, and I just couldn’t make myself continue. I lowered my arms and my head and Chris came over to stand with me. We stood together for a few minutes and waited for the wind to change. This is when we took the pictures of us standing together looking out over the valley. When I looked at the pictures Chris took of my first try, I could see that I hadn’t lifted my arms high enough, so the ashes couldn’t come out of the container to be carried by the wind. I tried it again, and although it was still hard, I reached high above my head and saw the wind carry the ashes up and away. I felt immediately relieved.
When it was Chris’ turn, he was able to do what I had not, send Mara’s ashes flying far up into the sky, weightless and part of the wind. It actually took my breath away to see the ashes in the air being carried away, and I got amazing photos of Chris during that brave, painful, beautiful scene that was over in an instant. Chris stood there for a minute alone and then came back to where I was. We quickly packed up the camera and tripod in the car and then went back to sit together and look out over the valley for a long while. Other cars pulled up, people got out and took pictures, and we just stayed and looked and held onto each other. We let the rest of her ashes go when we were alone again. We talked about how beautiful the place was, and that even in cold January. After all the ashes were gone and we sat and sat, we both noticed that the wind got warmer. The sun was shining on us, the wind was warm, and we felt like Mara was with us and like we had done the right thing. We talked to Mara, we talked to each other, and after a while, we walked around a bit to take some pictures of the sign marking the overlook. Then we got back in the car to keep driving north out of the park and back towards home.
As we drove, Chris talked a lot of about how much he wanted to come back to the mountains often with our family to do fun things and visit Pinnacles. We planned on getting an annual pass and coming back all throughout the year so we could see what Pinnacles looks like through all the different seasonal changes. We know it will be gorgeous throughout the year and it will be wonderful to see it grow and change every year. We would also love to start bringing Aaron for some camping and hiking. Someday, we will show this spot to Aaron and talk to him about how Mara got lifted up into the sky, just like he said it did the morning after she died. We talked about how we loved that the place we chose is a beautiful, living place, not a mournful, dead place. With every minute that passed and every mile we drove, we felt more and more peaceful about our decision. Nothing can ever make this easier, be we want to have happy lives and remember all the happiness that Mara brought us while we were together. We felt more settles as we drove back home and resolved to always remind ourselves of what that felt like when we had difficult times and to deeply invest in time spent with Aaron. I told Chris it was the best I had felt since Christmas Day. We enjoyed our drive home, chatting only off and on, and shortly after we got home I looked at the pictures we took. They are just incredible and we will always treasure them. Here is one precious photo that we want to share.



That evening after we got home, we prepared Dad’s birthday dinner, which was mostly Thanksgiving-ish, and enjoyed a great dinner and some birthday cake.

January 6-Driving to the mountains

Friday. Of Chris’ first week back at work. I had been really looking forward to him but have also been very anxious and full of sadness as this is the day we head up to the mountains to let Mara’s ashes go. Chris left school a little bit early so we could head out to to Shenandoah as early as possible. I did work around the house all day and did some packing and a lot of research about different locations that we might want to use. I felt sad all day knowing that in a way, this was going to be another goodbye. I also knew it was going to be hard for me to be away from Aaron during such a sad time.

During the drive out to Front Royal, the sun was in our eyes and it was a chilly and clear afternoon. We listened to music in the car and I cried several times.

We tried to go in the Front Royal entrance to the National Park, but it was closing too soon for us to make it to the next exit on Skyline Drive. So we took highway 340 down along the western edge of the mountains to Luray and found a Best Western where we stayed that night. I felt very very low and sad and just had no spirit in me at all. Chris tried to keep me smiling. We had a really delicious dinner at a nice little restaurant in a historic building in the very slow and sleepy town of Luray. We were very quiet through our dinner and while going back to our hotel room. We were planning to look at the map of Skyline Drive and talk about some of the overlook turnoffs and just rest together and give each other strength and support. But Chris was so exhausted from a trying week back at school and he fell asleep while I was learning how to use my new camera remote and looking at maps. He woke up to look at the maps with me a bit, we decided the route we were going to use in the morning, and then he was snoozing again.

I couldn’t fall asleep because I was feeling so emotional, so I stayed up until about 11 alternation between crying and reading Love, Mom, a book about a couple who had a stillborn baby girl. I finally got to sleep around 11, but I couldn’t sleep soundly. I tossed and turned all night, and kept waking up and seeing light out the hotel room window, afraid that I had overslept. We wanted to get an early start because we wanted to see a beautiful morning sun.

January 5

Tonight we got out of the house and did something fun. It was actually really nice. George was in town and wanted to have dinner, but he didn’t have enough time between the end of his meeting and his flight from Dulles, so we decided to go up to Tysons to have dinner with him, then take a walk around the mall and do a little bit of shopping. Just some time out, doing something that required not just a shower, but some nice clothing and even a bit of makeup. We had a lovely dinner, and George took this picture of me and Aaron with his phone. I was like…hey, that looks like me, feeling happy. I was relieved to see it, really. Aaron tried to keep his eyes open, but George’s phone flash was so bright he couldn’t hang. That’s the monkey hat Aaron got from his uncle George.

After dinner we drove across the way to the mall and I saw that I had a couple of new emails from people expressing their love and support. I read them to Chris as we were driving, and those emails, coupled with our pleasant night out, gave me a much-needed bolster. Just another time when I felt okay, maybe even good, and what I needed was more evidence that those days would be happening more often. We walked around the mall, bought Aaron some shirts in the Disney Store, and bought a new comforter and duvet cover for our room.

Another note about this photo…another example of the small ways your heart breaks every day. In November, I jumped on the Instagram train and put it on my phone. I bought it to take pictures of Mara. I wanted to have it ready for my baby’s arrival, and I imagined all the pictures I would take of her while we were home together. You can’t imagine how many photos I had staged in my mind that I would blissfully post with updates of every tiny baby movement and sound. After she was gone, I just kept seeing that icon on my phone. And it kept staring at me. And I remembered that I took an Instagram photo of Aaron just a couple of days before she died, and that I hadn’t opened it since. And I thought about all the pictures I wouldn’t be taking with it. And I just didn’t want to open it. But, I didn’t delete it, because that would go against my “don’t do anything dramatic out of grief that you will regret later”philosophy. And this picture is the first time I used Instagram after that. Such a stupid, small, thing. An app.

It used to be that seeing a picture of me and Aaron would give me a happy feeling of satisfaction and a parental glow. On this night, the picture was an anchor to reality. I didn’t get the same feeling of happiness from the picture that I would have before Mara died, and that scared me. It still scares me. But I keep looking at it. And even though it means something different than it meant before, it still means everything.

January 4

Here is Aaron playing with a Christmas gift…Do-A-Dot Art from the Raceks. I have NO idea what else went on. At least I got a picture.

January 3

Today was the day the Rothes went home to California, and the day Chris went back to work. Yikes that was a rough day. I was dreading Chris going back to work. First of all, he’s my rock, no better way to say it. As I have described before, I have been leaning heavily on him during my grieving. Not sure he’s really leaning on anybody as he’s not much of a leaner, but I do my very best to make sure he knows he can lean on me if he wants to. Also, I kinda had this sense that going back to work=moving on, and I didn’t want him to be on a different moving on path than me, more importantly, I didn’t want to feel like he was going to be “okay” sooner than I was while I continued to struggle. I absolutely knew for certain that I had no desire to go back at that point, but I knew I would miss him during the day, and I was starting to miss our friends and the good things about being at work.

So, because he had left for work around 6, as we usually do, he was not present for the Rothe goodbye, which was pretty much heartwrenching. Cameron didn’t want to leave and was very upset. It was especially sad when he said he wanted to say goodbye to Uncle Chris, who wasn’t home. Cameron said he didn’t want to fly back to California, he wanted to stay in Virginia, and all I can say is if you have ever heard Cameron’s tiny lilting voice and the way he draws out the last word in each sentence, you can imagine how sad this sounded coming from him while he was crying. Aaron also became very upset and didn’t want them to go. He cried and cried and cried and sat on the stairs and looked at me and said, “I’m very sad, Mommy.” My mom and dad took them to the airport, and after they all got in the car and drove away, Aaron and I stood in the garage waving, and Aaron just looked up at me with heartbreak all over his face. It was FREEZING, (as a matter of fact there were a few snow flurries that morning, the only snow during the whole winter break, which Kelly aptly categorized as a RIP-OFF) so we didn’t linger in the garage. We came upstairs, just the two of us home now, and got on the couch together and cried and held on to each other. Aaron was just so sad that his little buddy and Auntie and Uncle were leaving, and me, well, I was crying for all sorts of things. That’s just the way it is these days.

The only picture I took today was of these gorgeous flowers that I recently got from the lady who is substitute teaching for me during my absence. She is fantastic in every way, and she picked out PERFECT flowers. I loved the purple and orange together, and they lasted a really long time. I loved looking at them on my desk every day.

January 2

Kelly and Caleb made everybody omelets this morning. (I feel that word should either have two Ls or two Ts. It just looks too small.)

ANYWAY, it’s a specialty of theirs, and they have a cute little operation going in the kitchen. MAN it was good. Matter of fact, I could really go for one now.

January 1, @)!@

…which is 2012 while holding down the shift key.

A little cousin bathtime…too bad I couldn’t get them BOTH to look at the camera at the same time.

And some ADORABLE Aaron and Uncle Caleb technology snuggles.

December 31

I don’t have any pictures for today but I know we rang in the new year watching Return of the King, and you really can’t celebrate the start of a new year any better way than that. We had some sparkling apple and grape cider. Also, during the celebratory clinking of glasses (while the movie was on pause) I realized that the reason our Dyson hand vac wasn’t working was because the charger hadn’t been plugged into the wall. My dad TRIED to convey that, but I thought he meant the vac wasn’t plugged into the charger, so I plugged it into the charger overnight and it still wasn’t working. I followed every DAGGONE troubleshooting tip Dyson had to offer, including painstakingly cleaning the entire thing out with q-tips. I was upset because I knew we were not going to be paying to replace such a thing, and I might have had some choice words when I realized what the problem had been. Ah well.

Anyway, I feel compelled to say as I make this post that 2011 was not my best year. Aaron’s surgery and Mara’s death? Come on universe, give me a break.

I am thankful for Aaron’s successful surgery and his continued health. He was a light in the darkest of times in the weeks after Mara died. An anchor to reality who still has needs that must be met, and a reminder of happy things in our lives. I will admit that the first few days, while I was still numb, I did not feel joy even around Aaron, took no joy in him, and that was something that frightened and shamed me. I know now that it was temporary, and I have felt the familiar heart bursting sensation of loving parental pride on a regular basis for the past three months.

My love for him grows stronger as I watch his sensitive soul deal with the loss of his baby sister. My dear, dear son, who sees me start to cry many times a week, comes over, takes off my glasses and brings me a tissue. He wants to comfort me, and says, “Don’t cry Mommy, baby sister died when she was coming out of your tummy. Her heart just stopped and we don’t know why.” He asks to have a few flowers in his room every time we go to buy a new purple bouquet and says he wants them in his room so he can think about baby sister, too. He sees pictures of angels and says, “there’s my baby sister,” and he knows that there are some things that trigger my sadness. He has become comfortable with grief, and with talking about it. I feel that this is the greatest gift I have given my son, an emotional vocabulary and the self-assurance to talk about how he is feeling without being afraid or ashamed. I will be quite satisfied with that legacy.

December 30

Some cousin iPad bonding time.

December 29

How about a little Lego time? Cameron and Aaron are now old enough to argue with each other. Whereas before, Cameron was young enough to put up with Aaron being the bossy older cousin, that is no longer the case. There was a whole lotta toy-snatching-not-sharing-tantrum-throwing-arm-crossing behavior during this visit. Yikes. Sometimes it was a teeny bit humorous.

I think this picture of Ash and the boys really captures the activity level of the next few days. It was nothing if not relaxing. We did a lot of sitting around in clothing with no waistbands, playing on our respective electronic devices, and watching Lord of the Rings. We wanted to watch the trilogy while they were here, and I got it on Blu-Ray for Christmas! Oh MAN do they look good in Blu-Ray.

Today was my hubby’s birthday, so we all went out to dinner at Outback. Cameron fell asleep on the way there despite Kelly trying to keep him awake. Darn time difference. He was so tired and frustrated that he started crying in the car and told Kelly, “Mommy I don’t WANT to go to a restaurant when I’m crying!” There was a hilarious episode between the boys at dinner that involved some apple slices. I think it was that Kelly had taken Cameron’s bowl of apple slices to peel them and when Cameron turned and looked at Aaron, Aaron was eating one of his own apple slices but Cameron thought Aaron had nabbed them from him and he was ENRAGED! He looked at Aaron and yelled at him over and over to stop it and Aaron was just looking at us, munching on that apple slice, with this look on his face like, what the heck??? Caleb and Kelly tried to explain to Cameron that Aaron had apple slices too, but the little guy was just too exhausted to process all that.

Oh and I remembered something else we did in the days before the Rothes arrived. Chris and I watched all seven episodes of Once Upon a Time that had aired before Christmas. I saw one episode at Ashley’s urging and thought he might enjoy it, so we parked our butts on the couch and watched them all in a row. It was deliciously lazy and indulgent and I SO enjoyed it.

December 28

Today Kelly and Caleb and Cameron arrived for a Christmas visit. They were planning to come and meet their new niece and give the boys some Christmas time together, and I remember the day when we talked on the phone about them making the trip out. Once Mara died, I wasn’t sure if they would still want to come, because Kelly was over 6 months pregnant and all of this was so sad and stressful. I talked to Kelly about that after we got home from the hospital and told her that we hoped they would still want to come, especially so Cameron and Aaron could be together, but that if they decided to stay home we would understand and support that too. I was so glad to hear they were still planning to come. I love my sister, and I want to see her as much as I can. (Caleb is pretty awesome, too.)

Mom and Dad picked them up from the airport, and I think it was nighttime when they got back to our house. The plan for was to try letting Aaron and Cameron sleep together in Aaron’s room and for Kelly and Caleb to use Ashley’s basement suite. We weren’t sure if the boys would actually sleep. They did stay up talking and giggling the first two nights, but then they did just fine. I recall that Aaron was the major culprit. I seem to remember a story where Aaron woke Cameron up one morning by poking him in the back and then tried to tell that story in an innocent way. Here are the giggly cousins on an air mattress, loving being together.

By the time we went in the room in the morning, that mattress was doing some serious sagging. Chris bought a new one in time for their next night’s sleep.