6 Months

6 months ago today, we said hello to our baby girl at 5:46 pm. Then in a blink of an eye, 18 agonizing minutes later, at 6:04 pm, we so very unexpectedly had to say goodbye. We still don't know why or what happened. We got an autopsy, with a few answers, but really there is no real answer. Some days I am okay with it - would knowing why really make it any easier? Other days I cannot keep my mind from wandering and trying to figure it out, still to this day. I try not to think back to September 29th, it's just too painful even 6 months later. Tonight I found myself looking at the clock around 5:30-6ish. Luckily, my eyes did not meet the clock at exactly 6:04.

6 months. A half a year. I wish I could say it gets easier. It doesn't. I have just learned how to deal with it better and better. I am a more experienced griever now. It's really a mind game - focus. If I can keep my mind focused on something else, I can do just about anything. But if I am not expecting something and don't have the mental focus, it's too much. Case in point - I have learned to deal with seeing the baby girl on our street. I have not actually seen her up close yet - but I can see her stroller and her mom in my neighbor's driveway and not have my heart race and tears well up in my eyes. I even walked over there last week when she was out and talked to her mom in person. Her mom, being the nice person that I have learned she is, pushed the stroller into the other neighbor's driveway so I didn't have to really see the baby. However, last week I picked Sierra up early because her baby-sitter was going to a concert. The whole time I was preoccupied with whether or not she was going to walk down. Apparently, so was my other neighbor because she kept looking and it was pissing me off. I was trying to get Sierra to leave before they came down to get the older daughter off the bus, but it is SO hard to get my little social butterfly to leave. Then down the street walked my neighbor, her 3 year old son and the baby. The baby was in her car seat and her mom was carrying it - I guess they had just gotten home and she fell asleep in it. I wasn't expecting that, so I grabbed Sierra and ran across the street just in time. So as you can see, because I wasn't prepared mentally for what happened, I couldn't handle it. And from that point on, I was back to thinking about what I was missing and also about how I felt like such an outsider in my own neighborhood so often. And then I got to talk to a friend who knows and that really helped me feel less alone.

I try not to think about what I thought was going to be. I no longer say "what should have been" because, whether or not I have completely accepted this, there is no should have. Adelyn was not meant to stay here with us, as much as I wish she would have. I wish I could turn back time and change the outcome, every single day. That has not changed, probably never will change. I wonder sometimes if certain things will ever get easier. Will I ever be able to hear about a baby girl being born without aching for mine? Will I ever see sisters laughing and playing without wishing my girls got to do that? Will I ever see a little sister t-shirt without wanting a baby to put in that shirt? Will I ever walk through a children's store and not imagine buying Adelyn certain outfits that catch my eye? Will I ever not feel like something is missing from my heart, my soul, my being? I don't know. I know that I have learned to keep on living, experiencing, laughing even. To most I probably appear to be my old self again. But I'm not. I will never be. Inside there is a scar. I have experienced something that most people cannot ever understand. Some days I just wish everyone I know could spend one day in my shoes, know what it is like (without actually having to lose a child), and then maybe I wouldn't feel so alone and misunderstood like I so often do. Sigh....

Sweet Adelyn, I love you more than you know. I look forward to seeing you again. Until then, I will keep living, breathing, loving life as much as possible, because I know that's what you would want. But I will also keep honoring and remembering you so that others can learn not to take anything in life for granted.