Grief is so much different in experience than in perception. Losing Ruby, mourning her, missing her, and loving her is something I’ll do for the rest of my life. In my life before loss I had this perception that grief was some sort of straight line and you got through it and you went through these stages in order. I thought that at some point you’d mark an end. I was so wrong.
There are good and bad days still 18 months after losing her. The good days are finally starting to outnumber the bad, but not a day goes by without remembering, without wondering what it’d be like if she was here. How would her 1 year old personality fit in with her brothers and sister? What would she look like? What color would her eyes be? Her hair?
Today is 2 years to the day after seeing those 2 pink lines on the pregnancy test on my 29th birthday(the best present ever) letting me know her little life was growing deep inside of me. Today marks the beginning of the part of the year all my memories of her are in. Seeing her up on the ultrasound screen for the first time, hearing her heartbeat, choosing her name, finding out my gut feeling was right and she was a girl, telling Paul, Bella, and Seamus the baby was a sister and her name was Ruby. It is bittersweet.
I love the memories, how she feels a bit closer in this part of the year because that’s when she was alive. The bitter part is the pain of her not being here, that the memories are all I have because her body is buried six feet under the frozen Nebraska dirt and she is in heaven with Jesus instead of in my arms.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for that hope of seeing Ruby in eternity, but hope doesn’t always erase pain. Hope and pain, the bitter and the sweet, they all exist together.
