Tis the season....????

Well today marked the start of Advent....which means the countdown to Christmas has begun. I will be honest with you all....normally I love Christmas and I love decorating and everything that goes along with the season, but this year it is very hard to get "in the mood" for the holidays. Like most people I associate Christmas with children...their excitement and their smiles. When I found out I was pregnant the last week of January my mind wandered like every pregnant woman's mind does. I found myself thinking of what my babies first Christmas would be like. At the time I didn't obviously know I was having a girl, but my mind wandered to all of those beautiful Christmas dresses the little girls wear to church. At Easter time we knew they was a possibility of our baby having issues but we hadn't gotten a concrete diagnosis (until the week after Easter) so when I went to church my mind began to wander again. I thought next year I will be in church with our little one. I thought of all the holiday traditions that I grew up with and what I wanted to pass on to our children.....that all went up in a poof of smoke four days later when we got Gracie's diagnosis. A parent's dream shattered in an instant....our lives stood still. Our lives still stand still while the world whirls around us. Most days I think we feel like we are in a bumper car ring and getting shoved around from side to side....mostly just existing. How do you get your mind to do what everyone else is doing to prepare for the holidays? I tried going to the mall a few weeks back and left in tears because it seems that every woman with a baby 6 weeks old or less goes to the mall. We don't resent anyone's happiness, but it's so difficult to be around. You see a baby about the age of what Gracie should be and how does your heart not ache to the point that your chest feels like it will explode. This is our daily life....this is what we feel everyday. Some people may think we are getting better, but the reality of the situation is that now that things have calmed down our minds have more time to think about what has actually occurred in our lives. Jeff said the other day to me, "If Gracie was here I could be sitting in the chair playing with her...making her smile." How is that not a heartbreaking statement from my stoic farmer? I cry at the drop of a hat, but Jeff is quiet and then says some very profound statements that make my heart break. We continue to be each other's support systems and thankfully for us, we have very good lines of communication. We always feel we can talk about anything with each other and don't have to be scared to say how we feel. We both are scared about how the upcoming holiday will affect us and frankly how we are going to get through it. Our daughter will not be with us for Christmas here on Earth. Our minds know we shouldn't be selfish and want our child here with us and that we should be ever so grateful that she will be with God, but your heart tells a completly opposite story. Your heart wants your baby here with you...and then your mind kicks in and makes you feel almost selfish about thinking that way. I know there are many long months of healing a head for us both as this loss will not "go away"....it will most likely never go away, but we will learn to live with the loss (or so all the books tell me). A lot of people don't know how to act around us or what to say....what I can tell you is ask about Gracie. We want to talk about her. She is the love of our lives, just like your children. We had her for 15 hours but we made a lifetime of memories and we want to share them. I was looking through some of her photos the other day and noticed one I hadn't before. It's one where she was caught in the middle of one of her yawns. It's such a precious moment that was caught from her life. So as we go forth into this holiday season we are going to try and prepare our minds and hearts for what is coming, but that is hard to do. I didn't want to set up any decorations this year as I don't have much "holiday cheer" in me, but with my husband's help and support we put our decorations up together. We had received a few different ornaments with Gracie's name on them for gifts and they all have their places of honor on the tree. We will not have our daughter physically with us for Christmas but we will have her spirit and her memory with us.