Three months

October 15^th 2014 marks three months since we lost our girls. It also happens to be the National Infant Loss Awareness Day which is pretty fitting. I got to celebrate this by being as physically close to them as possible. It’s a long drive from where we live to where they are buried so it is something I’m thankful to have the opportunity to do. Annelise helped me pick flowers for them and I told her I was going to bring them to her sisters. I spent the afternoon reading to my girls as I wish I could do every day and sang them the lullabies they would have heard every night that they were with us.

They would be three months old….smiling, cooing, sleeping longer stretches, aware of everything around them. Somehow I feel their absence more with each passing day, not less. The void feels bigger. Time is supposed to heal and I suppose in some ways it does. I used to dream about them every night and wake up thinking that I felt their movement in my belly again. I would replay the moments where I got to touch and kiss them over and over and over. These things are starting to fade although I’m not sure whether I’m glad about that or not. In the same breath my love for them only grows as any mothers love does. With every new little thing Annelise learns I find myself thinking of Aimee and Grace and how quickly they would be learning as well.

 My girls have taught me a lot about how to be sensitive to other people’s struggles and losses. They’ve shown Jeff and I our need for God. They’ve reminded me to hold what I want loosely and what it truly means to live with our eyes fixed on heaven. I can’t imagine a pain much worse than losing your children and in some ways I feel like the world around me should freeze just as my life feels frozen. But that’s not the case. Everyone’s life keeps going. There are joys and hardships, reasons to celebrate and grieve. Life carries on, there’s no way around that; when I find that too hard to swallow I remind myself that Gods steadfast love is just as constant.  Someday maybe I’ll feel more ”myself” when it comes to friendships and life in general, or maybe I never will. That’s ok.

I’m so thankful for Grace and Aimee. They were given to our family for a reason. Someday my life too will feel like it’s moving on and although I fear that it will mean we have forgotten our precious twin girls that won’t be the case. We are blessed to call them ours and to love them forever. I hope God will continue to use them to glorify His name.