Years ago, we had a little dream, and we made the dream a reality and tied the knot and joined two youngsters in love in a marriage with a promise of forever, no matter what the future may have had in store for us.
The years would pass, and through those years there were some bumps along the way that we fought to get through, and felt like we had the strength to endure whatever would come our way. Each passing of April, we would celebrate another year of marriage and commitment to one another with purpose and hope for great things in our future.
Then it happened. The long expected journey we had been on in hopes and prayer for another son was about to unfold in a way we could not imagine. Plump and round, and squirmy our little bundle arrived and had us enamored and full of joy. April 11, 2010, we were entering into a new chapter that played out very differently than where our hopes had taken us. 8 days later, April 19th, we had to let him go. We released him from our arms and into heavens, to be whole, new and free. The next day, our 16th wedding anniversary, we were left wondering what had just transpired in our lives. Full of grief, we pushed forward, and even though we didn't feel like it, we continued to live. One week later, we traveled to the only place that felt enough like a home base to say goodbye and lay our son to rest. We kept going, through our grief and devastation though, we found reasons to hope, and lead our kids to a place of peace.
A year later, as we celebrated a first birthday without our son, I was expecting twin daughters, a little over half way through a scary pregnancy. 2 days later, April 13, at 23 weeks into the pregnancy, we would learn Baby A, Claire, was no longer with us. Baby B, Marlo, was well, for the time being, and we were left grieving another lost child, and fear for the one that remained. We would spend the next weeks in worry and hospitalized to attempt to extend our pregnancy as far as we could safely go for little Miss Marlo.
May 2, 2011, we delivered our tiny little Claire from my body and said our goodbyes as a fight for the life of our unborn daughter was really just beginning. After 5 additional days of time inside the safety of my womb, we frantically delivered our tiny one to prevent her from becoming sick from the delivery from just 5 days before. May 7, 2011, began an unbelievable path like nothing we had ever expected or understood. At just 1lb 11oz, and 14.5 inches, our feisty fighter took our hearts to places it had never been as she fought boldly proving all the doctors and nurses that she would not only surpass all the goals set, but that she would make it out of this journey surgery free, fully seeing, fully hearing, and fully feisty. 17 weeks and 2 days of fighting for life, in a NICU, and today, nearly 4 years later, fighting to continue to prove that she's got this.
So, in a nutshell, the last 5 years, April and May are our hard months, our joyous months, our months of remembrance. The grieving and the joy coexist within these two months of both desperation and despair, and ultimately life. Life that we keep living, even in spite of us and our shortcomings.
When you ask me how I am doing, this month or next. In all honesty, I am both okay, and not okay. It's an odd place to be. At some point one has to accept that they way things are, is just that...it is what it is, I suppose. Not a phrase I like, but there is so much truth to things that cannot be changed. I am grateful we have hope and joy leading us along. Sometimes though, April and the beginning of May are my winter and my spring. Mixed emotions.
April 20, 1994...Never in a million years would I have expected all we've done and been through. So many ups, and the downs would have been harder to go through, had I not had a friend and a partner to do life with. Someone who loves and strives to keep going just as I do, someone I would not want to do life without.... Love you, my dear.
Our April and May.
And that's just the way it goes.
Emmeline's Fifth Birthday :: ANIMALS!
5 years ago