Dark Cloud...

Yesterday meant the end to this awful and difficult period. The 19 day countdown beginning with June 26^th (Amelie’s birthday and 1 year anniversary to July 15^th, the day she died). The memories, re-living each day,starting with the good memories, then the bad. The memories in my head flooding back more vividly than ever before, wherever I was, whatever I was doing like a movie, a very sad and heartbreaking movie. We survived. We made it. But barely... I think we both are relieved it is over. Not that the pain is any less, but that dark lingering cloud following us now has slightly subsided (although it will never subside completely).

My way of coping with this all was to simply shut down. I became an even more detached and number version of my 'normal' self... (not really sure what is normal any more). I didn’t even feel like blogging, in a way I just wanted to ignore it, to pretend it all wasn’t happening. The first day, her birthday I cried. I cried so hard and all day long (privately in the restrooms or at work I hid where no one could see me). But after that day, I just shut down... it was too much. I wanted to look at her photographs, which usually make me smile. This time I couldn’t bring myself to, whenever I tried I felt as if my heart was being ripped out. Then, the numbness took over. This in turn made me feel even more sad. More empty. More distant from her, which kills me. More angry as if I was denying that this was happening, as if I was denying her. I wanted to be able to cry more. I just simply couldn’t, there were no more tears left to cry. No more pain to feel. I was at the limit of what I could feel. Reached my threshold...and I became numb. This was my survival mode, my way of coping.  I know the rule with grief is to let yourself feel whatever you feel and not judge or fight it or beat yourself up over it, so I try my best to remember this.

Of course, I am in pain, I'm hurting missing and loving her, more than life itself.…The fact that I feel it now in this new numb kind of way, that I hadn’t felt before, is okay. It’s alright. Being pregnant right now could also be making me feel like this, maybe a way my brain wants to protect myself and new baby from the scary intensity of grief? I don’t know. It’s all so new to me. Grieving while growing a new life inside me. The new life that I am so scared I will also be grieving one day, (sorry I cannot help but go there, even just for a second). But this is not the place. This post is purely about my sweet Amelie. My daughter, Only her, no one else. I do not want to move on, forget, to be happy. The hole in my heart will never be filled. She will always be mine just as I am hers. Always.