Three Years

I still can't believe it has been three years already and at other times it feels like a lifetime ago.  Westyn turned 17 months today so it seems like an eternity ago that I was pregnant with her.  It's amazing how much can change in three short years.  I feel like I am getting better in the way that handle my grief, but it still is always there.  Everyone keeps asking me how I am doing today.  I am ok.  It is just another day...I miss her every day, but today just makes me miss her that much more because I have to sing "Happy Birthday" to a grave instead of to the beautiful little girl anxiously awaiting her birthday cake. 

I often wonder what she would be like at three.  What would her personality be like..would she be like my daughter and not be into girly things or would she be the one who just loves princesses.  I will never know.  It sucks that I will never know.  All of these things that so many people take for granted.  I know that there are people out there who don't, but there are way too many who do take the little things for granted.  It's sad.  I find myself kissing my kids just because I feel like it or when I walk past them.  Even if they get nothing else from me they will know that they were loved.  I hope they feel that. 

I have been reminiscing this week.  Listening to the music we played at her funeral without turning it off immediately, listening to the song that we got her name from, and watching the slideshow that our NILMDTS photographer made of the pictures she took.  I spent a week crying, but I know that is ok.  I don't do it all of the time, but I needed to this week.  I needed to be reminded of her beauty and of how she changed my life. She was a gift to me even if I didn't get to keep her for long.  I am so thankful for all of the kind words that everyone has shared today and the warm thoughts and hugs.  It really means a lot to me.

Life goes on...and I will still miss her every day.  I am just so glad that I got to spend some time with her today even if it was freezing rain on me.  I hope she enjoys her red tulips.  Perfect love is the meaning of the red tulip, and I think that is very fitting to our relationship.  Happy 3rd Birthday sweet girl.  Mommy loves you...

Unfair..

I am subscribed to Trisomy 18's feed on Facebook, and I just recently read this article they posted about this little boy who was not expected to live past two months who just turned six last month.  The mother of this little boy had written this article to praise a few men who took the time to give her son a wonderful time skiing.  His special education class apparently went to a ski resort, and while they were there the mother got hooked up with two men who agreed to take her son's sled on a few runs.  She described the men as men who were not afraid of much so she is almost positive he wasn't staying on the bunny slope!  She said that the squeals of delight coming from her son were just amazing.  They came down and asked her if they could take him again.  She agreed of course.  She just wanted to thank the two men who were so wonderful with her son.  I am reading this article with tears streaming down my face because the ski resort just happens to be my favorite ski resort which is Durango Mountain Resort in Colorado.  It just reminded me that I never got to take Aubree skiing, and I never got to experience that.  Sure, I am glad that mother had the opportunity, but it just seems so unfair.  I am sure her life has not been easy these past six years, but she has had six years!  I would have given anything to just have been given six minutes...To let my family hold her and let her how know how much she was loved.  Maybe my kids could have really held her and told her they loved her.   We could have sent her off in love.  Sometimes it just seems so unfair.  I know many people think it was easier this way, but it really wasn't.  When you never get to lock eyes with your own child and hold them while they are breathing you would understand, but as her mother I grieved that I never got to do that.  I understood she was not meant to live, but that does not mean that I didn't want to experience even a part of life with her. 

As I get closer to the 22nd I realize how long it has been since she has been with me...three years.  It seems like yesterday and it seems like ages ago...I still miss her so much.