There are always reminders of Mira everywhere I go. My desk at work has her picture, a painting I
made for her, and a fox from Joe. Every
room in our house very purposefully has a picture or reminder of Mira in it. Just
as living children’s love, laughter, and crying fill every room of their
parents’ home, Mira fills every room of ours. My parents’ home and my in-laws’ home have
pictures of Mira up. The admin area of my
office has her footprint heart hanging year-round. It seems everywhere I go I see a fox. Reminders of love are everywhere, and I love
them.
But triggers of pain and grief are everywhere too. I have learned to handle them fairly well
when they are expected. I can scroll
through Facebook and see the pregnancy announcements, pictures of children Mira’s
age and newborn baby hospital photos.
Most of the time I can handle them just fine, I know when I log on Facebook
they will be there. I know when I watch Grey’s
Anatomy there will be complicated pregnancies and when I go to the movies
children will be there. Sometimes I
avoid these places and things because I know it will be too much, but often I
can now handle them because I know what to expect. It is those unexpected triggers that still
get me, and as we approach one year without Mira, they seem to get worse.
It is the picture of the baby and birth announcement that
greeted me on the work website I had to sign up for. It is coming home to a piece of mail telling
you that even though your baby is a year old they still need DHA, so be sure to
use this formula in the ad. It is seeing
the first Christmas lights of the year on a house on the way home from work and
being forcefully thrown back to one year ago when I first saw the 2017 Christmas
lights going up and broke down because Mira would not be alive to see
Christmas. Last year Mira was alive for Thanksgiving, this year she is
not. That is a hard, awful reality I
live in. Last year I was numb and
unaware of what was going on around me on Christmas, not because I was sleep
deprived with a one-week old newborn, but because my daughter died in my arms
one week earlier and I was in shock still. This year a laughing, screaming 1-year-old
will not entertain me on Christmas morning, I will light a candle and read an
urn the Christmas Story from Luke with Joe.
Though I am always perfectly aware of these realities, they hit hard
when unexpected triggers pop up that I did not prepare for. With the baby announcement in an unexpected
place, the Christmas lights, and the formula mailer all in one day, I am surprised
I am still standing today.
