Wrapping up....

....because I guess that's what I should do.

August 2012 was hard. It was also one of the most beautiful months of my life. Those two sentences look strange next to one another, but that's the truth of it all. The hard times and the good times are so pronounced in this chilly, eight month and this year certainly didn't disappoint on either count.

I started to unravel pretty spectacularly in the lead up to the girls' birthdays. Gosh, girls. I have two girls. That still catches in my throat sometimes.

Making a cake, baking shortbreads, ironing brand new party outfits. I let it all get to me. All the while knowing that once the party was over for the girl who was one, I had to do it all again - minus the cake, shortbread, party outfits and not to mention, the joy, the very next day. The contrast couldn't be more stark.

I've never been one to make Hope's birthday in to something it is not. And true to form, just like in previous years, we kept it very low key and didn't do anything that felt uncomfortable. Mostly, we were cleaning up from the day before and packing for the family holiday we took the very next day. We got about half way through the day, and I knew we needed to eat and suddenly everything felt too much again. We didn't want to go and buy a heap of food, knowing we'd be going away for a week the next morning, and I also couldn't face going to the shops, so we put a call out to some dear friends who had told us several times the day before "let us know if there is ANYTHING we can do to help tomorrow". So we asked them to bring us lunch.

Within what seemed like minutes, they arrived on our door step with a hot, fresh batch of borscht and fresh crusty bread with some lovely vintage cheddar. They'd also made some tuna and salad sandwiches for our boys, knowing that beetroot soup, beige couches and toddlers probably don't mix. Wise move.

I think if there was a perfect meal to eat on what was supposed to be your dead daughter's fourth birthday, this was it. The beetroot was cleansing, good for the soul. My liver thanked me, especially given all the crap I'd consumed at the party the day before. It was just what we needed.

It is good to have friends like these, the sort of friends who can waltz in to your kitchen, know where to find things (but if they can't find them, root around to find them themselves) serve up a meal, clean up a mess and leave again. And do you know, we only met these people when Angus was born. They didn't even know us when Hope died. They are absolute gems.

Before we knew it, we were staring down 4pm - the time the cemetery shuts. We quickly bundled all of our things in to the car, children included, and took off for her place of rest. From there, we were off to stay at my mum's the night, as she lives closer to the airport, which is where we needed to be early the next day. We dropped off some tulips a friend had bought for me earlier in the week, because hey they were only going to die at my place, we hugged and watched Angus run around and look at toys/flowers on other graves, then we got going. Mum cooked us a nice meal for dinner, no one really said much about the day or the significance of the day, but I guess no one really had to. I was so glad to fall in to bed, even if it wasn't my own. I made it through another birthday without her, and my sanity was mostly intact.

Our holiday the next day wasn't entirely the relaxing, rejuvenating trip I thought it would be, but hey, maybe I was deluded to think I could take a one and an almost three year old on a four hour flight to the top most corner of our country and have a good time. Live and learn.

We had terrible airport delays that I don't really need to go in to, but suffice today we lost the entire first day of our trip in waiting in airport gate lounges. Then, I got sick. Damn sick. And I haven't been sick a day all winter. Then they fell. The children got sick, Simon got sick and we were all one big sorry pile of snot and misery. And we were in god damn paradise. 29 degrees every day, 50 metre walk from the beach, paradise.

I let it get to me again. Why me, I thought. Why now? Why on my fun-filled post live and dead baby birthday holiday, why now? But I didn't stay in that pit for long, because damn it I was in paradise and I was going to try and have fun, even if it killed me. Just as we started to really unwind though, feel slightly better and acclimatise to the tropical conditions, it was time to come home. If there is one thing I hate in life almost as much as a dead baby, that is holidays ending, and this was particularly sucky given we didn't get to enjoy the first three quarters of it. But looking back now, in some ways I can see it was relaxing, and it was rejuvenating. I wasn't at home, I wasn't stressing about how to get through a first birthday party, how to survive another non-birthday with my daughter who never came home from hospital and I was away with the three (living) people who mean more to me than anyone else on earth. It was perfectly imperfect, just like the rest of our life I suppose.

And the Fairy Tales. Oh the Fairy Tales. This little project has kept me so busy, so excited and so fulfilled all month, I really can't put in to words how incredible it has been to be a part of it. And the last illustration for the month, Beauty and the Beast, was completed just minutes ago. This project has really tipped things in favour of sweet rather than bitter this August and that can only be a good thing. So as I count down the last 55 minutes of this intense month for another year, not to mention bode farewell to what has been a completely draining and shithouse winter, I would love if you could go and have a look at the project and support a cause that is so incredibly dear to my heart - raising funds for vital stillbirth research, in the hope that less parents will walk out of hospital without their baby, like we did on that dreary August day four years ago.