Season

This is it. Now. She is with me all of the year but we're in the thick of Saersha's season where it all reaches another level of almost unbearable intensity. She is in every breath, she is in every glance out the window, she is in every leaf on the sidewalk on every trip to the park on a cool clear day, she is in the rain and in the fog, she was really at the freaking pumpkin patch with the banjo player singing You Are My Sunshine. October, the month I spent waiting for her to arrive. October 15th and the events marking Infant Loss Remembrance, then her due date October 29th that I let pass unworried and now torture myself over, then Halloween with it's focus on kids and death and merriment I can't join in any more. Then we have November. November 4th when Saersha was born and November 6th when she died, and the time in between, her life, that I try so hard to remember every minute of. Then November 14th when her brother arrived a short year later. This year going back to work is thrown in there too. It's so much at once.

Still Life Canada's 2nd Annual Awareness Walk

 My in-laws were just here for a short visit and they care so much, I know, but I don't like to make myself vulnerable to them. I don't feel like I can really talk to them. We went to the aforementioned pumpkin patch with Stellan and tried to have fun, but really he is too young to get anything out of these things... it's just that we've all waited so long to do the kid stuff. It's really more Saersha who would have made the most of it. 4 sad adults and one baby who is so jolly and sweet but there is no repairing this hole. That is not to say that his presence makes no difference, because it really does, but we still miss her so much.

There is more to say over the next few weeks and I hope I will be able to have the presence of mind to write about it here.

Another October 15

This the fourth year I have observed October 15th as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. Although it is overshadowed by Saersha's death, I still grieve for my first loss, that one shot at a pregnancy of innocence and joy. That first year I felt very alone. But now I am thinking of all of the couples and families I know who have suffered this tragedy. We are many, but that doesn't make each loss less catastrophic or each baby less significant and loved.

Anja, Ohoosis, Alexander, Toren, Charlotte, Acacius, Marlon, Tobias, Marlo, Eva, Nathaniel, Stefan, Georgina and all others, I lit a candle for you and Saersha. You are missed so much.