Sad

With all the thousands, more likely hundreds of thousands of words I have thrown at my grief for the last 22 and a bit months, the main emotion I mostly feel is sadness.

Lately, I have been feeling sad. Just plain old sad. Not that I don't feel other things or that I ever stopped feeling sad but in recent times, the predominant feeling has been sadness. Winter doesn't help when it comes to feeling sad (not to mention sad) but I guess for me winter is always going to be a time of year when I'm feeling anything but joyous. And August is so close now. So desperately close.

For a variety of reasons that I don't need to go in to, I have had to tell Hope's story in full a few times of late. From the start. To a brand new person. Not leaving out any details and reliving every horrid moment of the whole sordid event.

It leaves me crushed all over again and completely defeated. How did this happen to me? Part of me still feels though I'm telling someone else's story. Or a work of such tragic fiction. Still so hard to wrap my head around the fact that the woman I am talking about is me and the baby I speak of was my own. Is my own.

I have been absent from this place for so long now. I still read. I still comment. I still get a bit breathless when I see another new club member show up. There seems to be so many new blogs out there of late, and it is impossible to keep up. But lately I have felt the need to write again, even though my grief isn't new and shiny like so many others out there.

I'm not writing tonight with a point or a burning issue I need to address though, I guess I am doing it because I think I should. And maybe someone out there cares? I don't know. But I created this space for her, and lately it is looking a bit neglected. So I come back here for her, and I throw a few more words around about my sadness for her. Because this stupid blog is one of the only things she gets. No goodnight kisses. No bath time. No stories. No sharing toys with her brother. Just a bunch of words spun together about how sad I feel about the fact she is dead.

Two years. Just around the corner. And I think some people think with Angus here, it will be easier than the first year. But I'm not totally sure. Last year was all about the build up to the big one year anniversary. I had loads of support and a new baby in utero to nurture and I felt like I was in a bit of a bubble. This year I feel a bit exposed. I am sure beyond a shadow of a doubt, far fewer will remember this year and I don't have the worry of the pregnancy to distract me (even though I am so lucky to have Angus here in my arms). I'm on edge about her birthday, to say the least.

We also don't have a plan this year. August is just one flip of the calendar away and we don't have a clue what we are going to do to mark her death/birth days. Simon has a few days off so we'll do something but as to what that is, we really have no idea. I still don't think I want to do cemeteries, cakes or faux birthday celebrations. That is just not me. I also don't think I want to be around people, even if they are the people who have quite literally kept me afloat in the last two years. In a way I am alone in my grief, as I'm the only one who really knew her, so I really feel like I need to be alone (with Simon and Angus in tow of course).

And I'm just sad. So sad. We are shivering through the coldest winter we've had in years and it is just hard to feel happy, despite the deliriously happy boy who plays at my feet and who laughs at practically anything I say.Daffodils are being so brazen and already poking their bright green heads through the cold damp earth. And the memories of the daffodils surfacing the previous two years are weighing me down. I think back to last year and the intensity of the grief and the unrelenting missing and then of course to the year before that to that to the expectation, anticipation and complete and utter arrogance that all would be well and I stand dumbfounded at how time keeps marching on. That seasons change, flowers bloom and that life continues to pass me by without her.

And with my Angus here, my sweet, charming, challenging Angus, it is of course all of a sudden that much clearer to know exactly what we lost (or at least have a better idea as he is his own person, he's most certainly not her or any form of replacement). He's turned our lives completely upside down. Just as she did when she arrived. But I know this is the kind of life upheaval I would have preferred in August 2008. He's been difficult at times, but no way near as difficult as not having Hope here. Sleep deprivation has got nothing on gut-wrenching grief.

I'm sure some reading this will worry though. Worry that I'm a mess of a mother to Angus and moping around the house all day every day feeling sorry for myself that Hope died and my life got thrown off course. Poor me. But everyone can rest assured - that is totally not the case.

It is just that there is this utter, hopeless sadness that sits within me now and there isn't really anything anyone can do about it. And of course at this time of year, I'm going to come here to scratch the grief itch and poke at the raw wound of my sadness.

Just have to batten down the hatches, and survive what lies ahead in the weeks to come. August will come and August will go and if I learnt anything last year, I know I will survive it. I know I will be ok, despite the sadness that threatens to overwhelm me these days.

Two years. Two years of being sad is such a short time when I know there is a lifetime of this empty sadness ahead of me.

So I suppose tonight, amidst my sadness, I just want to say I miss you, baby girl. I'll forever be so sad that you're not here.

(And for all the worriers out there, I hope the photos in this post serve as proof that despite such desperate sadness, JOY can co-exist ).