Monday, July 26, 2010

Approaching

I can hardly believe some days that Felicity's been gone almost 2 years. I recently wrote about how I feel I'm doing in my grief. Oddly enough, within days of writing that, I had some days of sadness where I spent a lot of time thinking about her.

Her pictures are displayed throughout our home, but I came across a few the other day that knocked the breath out of me when I saw them. I literally couldn't breathe for a moment and even now as I'm thinking back to how that felt, I feel short of breath again.

She was so beautiful! Did I really have a baby die? In the car the other day, I flashed back to when I routinely traveled that same road to visit my midwife for appointments. It still feels so surreal to me sometimes.

Little things trigger my emotions: seeing an ambulance and wondering if it was the one that took her lifeless body to the hospital, seeing a cute little brown haired girl at the playground, sitting at the dining room table when it's dark out and seeing my reflection in the patio door. I remember doing that the night before she was born and being so tired of being pregnant. I took for granted that my baby would be born healthy and soon.

I told my friend Heidi the other day, that I kind of feel myself shutting down as Felicity's birthday approaches. I still don't know how to do this - celebrate a birthday for my daughter who's not here. And yet, I want to and I have to. The boys need to remember their sister and now that Caleb's here, I don't want it to seem like he's replaced her. The planning of these things always seems to fall on my shoulders though, and right now, I feel too weary to even think about it.

5 comments:

Kimberly @ Raising Olives said...

Praying for you today!

Anonymous said...

Honey, you will not be grieving/celebrating alone! Just thinking of that beautiful little girl brings tears to my eyes. And your words strike a chord in my heart. Your family stands with you, and on God's promise that we will see Felicity again! Love, Mom

Ebe said...

Praying for you. I know how hard this time is...

Sherri said...

Rachel,
For some reason I thought planning a birthday remembrance/celebration for Amelia would have come so naturally, because there is such a strong, ever present desire to honor her life. However, the closer it got, the more I wanted to be a hermit. I knew I had to do something too, and we did. I will be praying for your strength in honoring her in whatever way you choose. Whatever you do will be just right - because it will be from a momma who loves and misses her. She is beautiful, by the way.... I mean really beautiful! That was the first thing that struck me when I saw her photos on your blog.
Sherri

melissa said...

I can so relate to this post! The feeling of breathlessness, the flashbacks, the ambulances, the sense of surreality and asking yourself, "Did I really have a baby that died?"

Some years I have loved celebrating Matthias' life and really been able to grieve his death on his birthday. Other years I just can't. I feel like I go through some motions for the sake of the other children, but inside it's just not the same.

I think we grieving moms have to again and again learn to be gentle with ourselves and just "be where we are" without worrying about how we "should" be acting or grieving! That being said, I hope Felicity's birthday is meaningful and special this year, mixed with grief and joy...