As our Family sat around the T.v. last night watching as the world said goodbye to 2014 and hello to 2015 everyone was excited and happy. We watched as confetti flew and everyone was kissing one another. Everyone on T.v was cheering and they were... happy. Yet I found myself with tears rolling down my face.
2014 was a good year for our family. Nothing spectacular happened but nothing terribly bad happened so for that I say 2014 was pretty good. I look at 2015 with a list of things I would like to achieve for myself and our family. Not really a resolution but more of like a bucket list of things I was to accomplish. So why did I find myself crying. I guess a friend put it perfectly on facebook 2 years ago. With each new year some awesome and excited new changes. However, with each new year brings me further and further away from the day I last held my baby girl. 8 years 4 months 14days. I miss her, but I miss her differently than I did in the beginning. In the beginning every inch of my body ached to hold that sweet baby girl again. Even at the two year make I wanted to hold my "baby" girl again, never *truely* realizing then if she had lived she wouldn't be a baby anymore. At five year I still wanted to hold my "baby" girl. Again not *really* taking into an account that she would have been 5 and We would probably be breaking up fight with her and Jadon, going to school every day etc.
But the last few weeks I have been missing her differently. I have been missing all thing things I have been robbed of with her since she left us far to soon. I miss the things that should be in our future. I do not ache with ever inch of my body to hold her baby self. I hurt deep in my heart because there are things that I will never do in my life. I will never get her ready to the big father / daughter dance. Or twirl around the house in her new dress. I will never dry tears from first loves heartbreaks and tell her that her daddy is the only man she will even need. I will never argue with her over her Prom Dress being short, or not enough material or argue over clothes in general. I will never watch her walk across the stage graduation. I will never drop her off at a college on her first day, or be there at the door when the man she will marry picks her up for her first date. I will never squeal in excitement when she calls to say she is engaged, or help plan her wedding and shop for wedding dresses. I will never get that call where she is super excited because she saw two pink lines and she is nervous and excited at the same time.
Yes with my amazing boy I will have many of similar experiences but I will never have those exact experiences. I will never have a mother-daughter relationship with a living daughter. My Mother-daughter relationship is a relationship mothering a memory of what should have been.
So I sit here again with tear rolling down my face thinking about what 2015 had in store for our family. I hope that our Family continues to gain strength. My boys are still tucked safe into bed and I am planning on a fun filled day before waking them up.
HAPPY NEW YEAR from our family to yours, I hope that 2015 is a year filled with blessing for all of you here.
Samantha, you said it so perfectly here, "mothering a memory of what should have been." Hugs! I LOVE this picture of the boys! Happy New Year to your family!
Lindsay
Happy New Year Samantha.
Much love always,
Rebecca
Hugs and love, Sam. I don't think the ache will ever go away for us angel mommas -- wondering what the mom experience would have been like with our babies ... at every stage and milestone. Many hugs and much love.
erin
It's strange how our grief changes so much more slowly than our children would have if they were here. I had the chance to spend time with two little boys over the past couple of weeks who are exactly the ages Tristan and Gunnar would be. It's crazy to realize that they wouldn't be the tiny babies we remember, the only "selves" of them we'll ever know. Tears are the only response to this realization. Hugs to you and your family.
Shannon