4 O'clock

Dear Aven,

I thought of you today at exactly 4 O'clock. I was walking around at work when I looked up at the clock and saw the time. I wondered for a second what things would have been like had you lived. I didn't let myself dwell on it because if I needed a moment to myself to get it together, well ...I knew I wasn't going to have that luxury given my work schedule. I miss you terribly when I realize another month has passed, or when I look at the scars on my arms from my hospital stay... and sometimes times just because it is 4 O'clock.

Love,

Mom

A vision of sorrow...

There is, I am convinced, no picture that conveys in all its dreadfulness, a vision of sorrow, despairing, remediless, supreme. If I could paint such a picture, the canvas would show only a woman looking down at her empty arms.

Charlotte Bronte

Breathe.

 Breathe.

Listen for my footfall in your heart.

I am not gone but merely walk within you.

 ~Nicholas Evans~

And time passes...

♥ “Each new life,no matter how brief, forever changes the world.” ♥

♥ “Each new life,no matter how brief, forever changes the world.” ♥

It's never gone...

It has been said time heals all wounds… I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind protecting it’s sanity covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens, but it’s never gone…

-Rose Kennedy

7 months...

Dear Aven,

I miss you.

Love,

Mom

I will...

As long as I can, I will look at this world for the both of us.

As long as I can, I will sing with the birds, I will laugh with the flowers,
I will pray to the stars... for the both of us.

Author Unknown

My battle

There seems to be more days now where I don't have time to sit and write my thoughts out the way I used to. I always have thoughts floating about in my head though. Some good. Some boring. Some dark. Regardless of what the thoughts are, they are always there and for the most part are either about my new life, about my daughter or about what is to come. It has almost been 7 months since I had Aven. I can't believe we are well on our way to a year. I can't believe my legs haven't buckled from under me yet. 

Some days I feel exceptionally strong. Nothing will make me cry if I am not welcome to the tears and nothing will make me crumble. I have been there, done that and I have managed to come out breathing even when I didn't want to. Maybe some view it as strength. I had two options if you really think about it. I could disappear and wither away or I could fight like hell. My battle is not over. I may fight this battle for the rest of my life. My battle with grief. My battle with my heart. My battle with my brain. My battle with my soul. My battle with my body. My battle with my will. My battle with my spirit. My battle with my future.

Some days I feel exceptionally weak. Some days my strength is tested and my soul is tired of hurting. Some days my heart feels just as raw as it did the day I knew my labor was imminent. Some days my faith fights the battle for me.  As much as people want to take away my sadness, my hurt, my pain....they can't.

The burden is mine.

The grief is mine.

The tears are mine.

The strength is mine.

Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. Love still stands when all else has fallen.

1 Corinthians 13:7-8

~ The loveliness I see as I write my thoughts today ~

~ Lola nosing around in Aven's Garden ~

Thinking of you...

"If I could reach up and hold a star for every time you've made me smile, the entire evening sky would be in the palm of my hand."

For today...

Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time.

 ~ Oswald Chambers