Life After Loss

We vowed to love each other through better and worse. We cried together the day we found out we were pregnant. We cried together the day Arianna was born. We cried together when she spent time in the NICU. We cried together when she did things we were told she never would. We cried together when we knew she wasn't going to make it. We cried together when she gained her angel wings. We still cry together on the days we are just so exhausted we can't move. We aren't super humans. We don't know some super powerful secret. We don't have the perfect marriage. But, we've somehow managed to grieve together. It is not easy. I could be having a great day, and Gonz could be having a horrible day. We learned really quick we had to be upfront and honest about the bad days. It's so easy to see your spouse in a bad mood and assume it's because of something you did. We have learned when to talk. We have learned when to joke. We have learned when to just hol...

Every single day I wake up with a heavy heart ; a pain in my chest that I'm sure will never subside. Everyday I run through all the different scenarios and all the ways that maybe, just maybe, I could have saved my daughter's life. I know, just like every other bereaved parent does, that this is not helpful or healthy. You can't stop it though. And that is okay. It is okay to not be okay--even though everyone wants to tell us it will all be okay. You know when I'll be okay? The day I see my daughter's beautiful smile again. Until then, I will continue to replay the worst moments of my life over and over again trying to make some type of sense of how this could possibly happen. Most days I can think about it and even have flashbacks to that final month, and still function. Other times those flashbacks are so much stronger. I'm standing in the hallway at St. Catherine's being told Flight For Life is almost there. I can feel the cold floor beneath me as I sin...