Today is January 24th.

Two years ago on this day I came home from the hospital absolutely devastated. Shattered! I was in shock! The unimaginable had happened. My unborn son had died, and been born. I had held his lifeless body, and then left him at the hospital. I had no idea how to cope with this hellish situation I found myself in. I hurt so bad that I could hardly feel. I don’t know how to explain it other than that. The feelings of pain were so intense that I couldn’t even process them properly. It was unreal, and yet I HAD to deal with the reality of it all.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been two years, and yet with everything that’s gone on in the last two years………………There have been times that I wished life would hurry up, and others that I wished it would slow down. Life just kept on ticking along, and dragging me with it.

To be honest, I didn’t remember that this was today until Jon came upstairs later this morning, and reminded me. We were both busy today, and yet had planned to take the kids out to release balloons when school was over. Last year we kept them home with us. We needed them, their life and energy to get through the day. Last week, when we remembered about today we had talked about how this year was a little different from last year, and this year I needed them to be in school to be able to cope.

I don’t feel the overwhelmingly sad feelings about today. I rather feel like I’m in a cocoon just trying to get through today. I feel guilty about that, like somehow I’m disrespecting Nathaniel’s life and memory by just trying to survive today. It’s not that I don’t feel sad or that I don’t think about him. I think about him often, he will always be my 4th child, my second son, but today I just need to get through. Maybe tomorrow will change that, who knows!

We went to the same park as last year to release helium balloons that we had written notes on. All 5 of us had one, and we all wrote our own special notes to Nathaniel. It’s so neat to see what the kids say, and how they think. I did take a few pictures of the kids drawing on their balloons, and a few of what the balloons said, and then my camera battery died. Jon took some crappy shots on his camera phone, so we’ll have to see how they turn out. I’ll post them later when my battery has been charged.

Each kid wrote something really unique and special. It’s interesting to see their “take” on the life and death of their brother. Geli asked the question “if he was surprised when the other brothers and sisters came to heaven?” I thought that was a pretty cool way to look at the tragedies that we’ve been through over the past 2 years.

It’s weird too, ’cause this feels like it should have been a much bigger deal. I was thinking about 2 weeks ago about this, and about how clueless we were when this happened. I wish that someone had pushed for us to invite our families to come and see and hold our son. Would that have made it more real for them. Would they then realize what they’ve lost too, and that this wasn’t just our personal loss, but a greater family loss. They all lost out on a nephew or grandson. I wish that my kids could have held or seen their brother. All they have is the 2 pictures that we took (only 2 ’cause we felt like we were being morbid or weird or something - I wish I had a hundred….we only had that one chance, and now it’s gone) and what we’ve told them. It’s amazing how going through something like this can change your perspective on life and death and the thought that the whole thing might be “morbid” or “gruesome” changes. You’d do anything for just one more moment or photo or….anything!

It’s hard to believe that this happened to me, and yet with everything that we’ve gone through over the past two years, I’m not even really sure that I remember what I was like before Nathaniel was stillborn. I know I’m a better person, yet I wish I hadn’t had to be! Not that I wish that I could go back to that person, but I do wish that it had never happened to me - I wish it never happened to anyone. But it did, and I go on. Everyday I breathe and put one foot in front of the other and continue on with life. I Live!