The reason they want your due date is they can send you age appropriate advertisements for the REST OF YOUR LIFE. Every month we would (and still do) receive coupons from Pampers telling us "Your baby is now 9 months old!" It goes without saying, that the first few times you receive these, they are devastating. But, as with everything else, I have a thicker skin now. But on Thursday I received the worst one yet. It was a magazine called "First Wishes" and it was devoted entirely to different things you could buy to celebrate your baby's first birthday. At first I was able to shake my head and put it out of my mind.
When Josh came home, I showed him the magazine and this time it wasn't so easy to forget about it. Julia would have been 1 year old in a month, and under normal circumstances this magazine would have been right up my alley. But instead of spending hours picking out the best birthday plates and cake, I have been spending hours figuring out how to commemorate her first birthday. And while this has brought me some comfort, it has also brought back many of those intense feelings that were felt in the first few months after her death.
I knew that the holiday season was going to be hard. The emotions I am feeling bring me back to the beginning. And as hard as this is, it seems fitting that we will have come full circle in the course of a year. People might have a hard time understanding this, but the intense emotions I have started to feel as her one-year gets closer are almost a relief. I want to remember my daughter and I want to, at times, feel that raw pain that I felt after she was born. Many people act uncomfortable when I mention that we will be commemorating her one year with a gathering and a card we will send out. I think people would be more comfortable if we just "moved on." But what they don't realize is that what we are doing- what Josh and I need to do- is part of the grieving process. I will never "move on" from Julia's death. I will, G-d willing, have other children and live my life to its fullest, but there will always be someone missing from that life who I don't want to forget.
I went to see the movie "Rachel Getting Married" this weekend. In the movie there are references to a young son who died years ago in a tragic accident. At one light-hearted moment in the movie, the father is taking dishes out of a cabinet and comes across a plastic plate with a train on it that used to be their little boy's dish. The happy atmosphere turns to one of sadness and people quickly leave the room. While I saw the sadness there, it was not necessarily a bad thing that he found this dish. Each time I find something that reminds me of Julia my heart aches, but I wouldn't have it any other way. My connection to my daughter is completely defined by my memories of her and I treasure all of them, no matter how sad they may seem.
.
3 comments:
I think I was so tied up with worrying first about you, Josh and your father that I just sort of let my feelings go. I also think having spent the most time with her that I got to be her grandmother - hold her, talk to her, rock her, introduce her to her grandfather, father and mother. I miss holding her and think every time we are together what it would have been like with her there. She's still with us though and always will be.
As a practical matter, you should be able to filter out most of those emails. Any reputable emailer will allow you to unsubscribe, and for those that do not, you should be able to create a filter that trashes many of the unwanted messages.
Good luck with everything.
Absolutely - As hard as those raw moments are, missing our child -- those are the moments that I search for and cling to because they are reminders of how much they are loved and missed. It will always be that way.
Thinking of you guys as Julia's birthday approaches.
XO
Post a Comment