One Year Later

One year later…
I have been thinking about this milestone for a while in anticipation of how I would feel. A large part of me was very nervous. I feel that we are in a good place, very much at peace in our lives. I was nervous that this milestone may set us back.
Where we have come from is somewhere I never want to be at again. It is so hard….literally no words can describe it. It is hurt, sadness, and pain that makes you physically ill. I remember for the first 3-4 months I walked around every moment of every day with a pit in my stomach. I woke up every morning heartbroken that it wasn’t just a horrible dream. I cried several nights on my way home from work because I toughed it out all day and could not fake it any more.

That part of our journey as hard and as difficult as it was has helped us learn so many life lessons and a few of those are below.
We have learned time does heal. (But please don’t ever say that to someone that is grieving…not what they want to hear!) We will never get “over” missing our baby girl. We will always have a piece of our family missing and she took a piece of our hearts with her to heaven.
We have learned how to live our new life. How you pick up the pieces and how you live after going through a difficult situation is a choice. Everyone does it differently and there is no right or wrong way. We still are not perfect but we are starting to figure it out again. We are trying to get used to our new “normal.”
We have learned how much people care. The success of Love Adelyn in our first year is mind blowing. When we started brainstorming ideas, we never would have dreamt it would take off so fast. In a society filled with so much negative news we sometimes forget how amazing the majority of people really are. So many of us want to be a part of something larger than ourselves, we want to make an impact, and we want to help others.
We have learned that is ok to grieve the way we want to. Such a large part of grief is guilt. We are now very much at peace that it is ok to smile, it is ok to laugh, and if we don’t cry that is ok. Your mind can do many tricks on you and the guilt can be so powerful. We have given ourselves permission to be happy. This doesn’t mean we lover her any less.
We have learned that God is great. Like we have said many times our faith is stronger than ever before. We have learned to slow down and to be aware and you never know when God will speak to you. It is such a comforting feeling to have faith.
We have learned that we will always morn, we will always wish it could have been different, we will always wonder “what would she be like”, we will always be her mommy and daddy and she will forever be our baby girl.