I haven't written here in a while, too long in fact. This month is too difficult, and marks too many anniversaries for me to make it through on my own. A year ago yesterday I got a surprise visit from my dad and received the most horrifying news I had ever received in my young life to that point. The worst I hoped to receive for a long time. My wonderful uncle Kenny had died, suddenly and unexpectedly. He was a beloved member of our family and left long before his time. I have remembered him every day of this last year and, a year later, the news has still barely sunk in. At the time I figured that this was this would be the worst thing our family would have to deal with for a very long time. Little did i know that just 8 days later I would learn that our beautiful baby girl was not going to live. Nine days after loosing my uncle I would say goodbye to my beautiful girl.
This past year has been the hardest of my life and now we are only 7 days away from Liam and Addy's first birthday and 8 days away from the anniversary of Adeline's death. It feels like this year went by in the blink of an eye. Although I did not always realize it, looking back I see that I have spent the entire time hanging on for dear life. Each day was, and is a battle to just make it through our life. I feel like I have missed so much in this last year, trying to stop time, to stay as close to Addy as possible. We will always remember her, I know that, but I feel like the further we get from her birth and death, the further she gets from us. Liam is growing into his own little person. He is such a beautiful little boy but the more he grows, the less he looks like her. I wonder very often how much they would have looked alike if they grew up together. When he was a newborn I would kiss his head, just as I kissed hers in her little isolette, and if I closed my eyes I could feel like it was her. His squirmy little big boy head no longer has that newborn feel, no longer feels like hers.
I am so proud of my boys and my family and all of the things we have overcome and come through together this past year. I was terrified that the loss of Adeline would be too much for us to weather, that we would grow apart. Instead, we have grown together in her memory. We live for her and for each other and I could not be more proud of that. The past month has, of course, been the most difficult. I can feel the tension building. I am on edge all of the time and I can feel that I am not alone in that. I think of her and remember her every second of every day and I cannot believe that it has already been almost a year since I first held her screaming little body in the delivery room. Almost a year since I turned to my husband and said "We have a daughter." Almost a year since that perfect few hours when I had two beautiful babies side by side on isolettes in the nursery at Wentworth Douglas. I often look back on that time, the time before we knew we would only be bringing one of the home, with envy. How I would love to go back to that moment, to drink them both in, if only for a moment.
Over the past year my thoughts so often drift to my Uncle Kenny. I never really had time to process his loss. In fact I very nearly went into labor in while in Bangor for his funeral. At only 34 weeks I figured it would be fine to travel, though did bring a copy of my medical record and hospital bag with me just in case. I know that he is giving my girl some good snuggles in heaven until I can get there. He always did love the little ones and it gives me some peace to know that he was right there to meet her.
