Looking back on the past few weeks, I think I was standing in the sun. If grief is a forest then I had found a patch of sunlight. For what ever reason, I decided to start walking again. It's dark again. Really dark.
While stumbling around in the pitch of black, I keep encountering different painful, emotional, poignant moments. Moments like yesterday. We went and did a little upkeep on Aidan's spot. Nothing major just some weedeating and reorganizing. As we were standing there as we do every Sunday, it hit me. We were standing there while others were putting their own babies in costumes getting ready to show them off. Others were basking in their future halloweens of dressing the growing babies. So, I came unglued. I sobbed it out on Evan and then Mom. And then I got it together enough to be there to watch my knight, skunk, football player and ladybug be adored.
I hadn't given much thought to Halloween before now. I know now that even the smallest of holidays are going to have this bittersweet twinge. I'm always going to wonder what we would have done with him, the pictures we would have taken, the love I would show him. And while I am beginning to hope for a day where I do get to have my own trick or treater, I know that I will always reserve a special moment for him. Some time to spend with him. Something to make sure he is always remembered.
So, I have survived my first holiday without Aidan. We didn't do anything. I'm afraid to say we didn't even turn on our porch light. But, I made it. Now, I have to get through some more darkness.
I've counted my first contractions that weren't my own, Thursday is the first shower that won't get to be and Friday is two months. If I can find the courage to face these moments then on Sunday I get to spend a day that is very much about Aidan. It's All Saints Day and he is being celebrated. I will have to summon the courage to tell our story. To somehow find the words to explain the impact he's had. I'm open to any ideas or suggestions. It seems I'm having a hard time finding the words for this one.
Earlier today, while riding in the car with Jason, I found the right words to express how I am feeling lately. I'm not so sad about not having River physically with us as I am about all the future that we will never experience together. I know that River is present with me all the time in my heart, in my memory of her, in sharing her story and my journey with others on my blog and twitter. What makes me most sad is that we won't have videos of her first steps, or first words; or photos of her first Christmas, or her first Birthday, or her first day of school, or her Graduation. All the milestones that we will not experience that have instead been replaced with the day we should have been induced, or her official due date, or so many months since she was born and passed on, or the first Christmas without her.
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