I have been trying to write this story and this post for about 14 months. Every time I sit down to do it I just can’t seem to find the right words and my opinion of God continues to change daily, but if I edit it anymore it will never be posted. Still not sure I’ve gotten it quite right yet, but it’s such an important piece of our story that needs to be shared that ready or not, here…
Some days I struggle. Most days I can put Ava into a safe place in my heart and hold her there while I continue living a life with purpose and full of happiness, but some days I can’t. Some days I just hurt too much to come out of the shadows, and when I wake up in the morning I wish I could go back to sleep until the pain was over. Some days I just really struggle. And though those…
It’s been over a year and I still don’t go more than a few hours without thinking about Ava. Some days I feel OK, “normal,” like myself again. Then there’s days that I still feel like I can’t function. Like the other day at work. I completely lost it. I got triggered by a patient and I couldn’t recover. As soon as I would feel like I was close to being able to get through the day a different patient…
365 days after Ava died I woke up to the sounds of birds chirping and trees rustling in the wind. The sun was barely starting to rise and everyone else, Travis, Logan, and my dad, were all still asleep. I burrowed deep into my sleeping bag letting the relief wash over me. I had made it. I had survived the worst year of my life, the first year after my baby died. I closed my eyes and drifted off to…
We left the hospital on Thursday and buried our daughter that following Sunday. The days in between are somewhat of a mystery in my memory, but there are a few events I’m certain of. The first was the preparation for Ava’s funeral.
When I first arrived at the hospital I was terrified of the uncertain future we faced. I had no idea how long we would be staying and I was preparing to be trapped there for months if it meant saving our baby. I remember spending the drive to Denver brainstorming up ways I could keep my job by working remotely from a hospital bed, and trying to come up with childcare plans for Logan. At some point in our drive,…
I haven’t written in awhile and there are still a few parts of Ava’s story remaining that I haven’t shared. These are the parts and the details I want to put down on “paper” before too much time passes and I forget them. For the next few posts, I’m going to continue telling the rest of Ava’s story because I need to make sure it is complete. If not for your sake, or hers, then for mine… After spending a few days…
Two weeks and three days after Ava died we were on an airplane to Minnesota where we had both grown up. One of Travis’ best friends from childhood was getting married and we had been planning this trip for months. We were going to see our families, Logan would get to play with his cousins and we were even going to have our first overnight out while Logan stayed with my parents. We decided it would be nice to be…
So what happened? I’m sure it’s the question on everyone’s minds. I know it’s all I’ve been able to think about for the last eight months. What the hell happened? I feel like its the first thing people are thinking when they see me but no one has the courage to ask. I’ve thought about writing this post over a hundred times but I’ve held off in hopes that I will have more information to share with you. I’ve spent…
Everyone keeps telling me that the only remedy for my grief is time. Time for me to heal, time for me to grow, time for me to get used to the fact that all of this is real. Time. It is one of the stranger things people say to comfort me when I really think about it, because as true as it is, what am I supposed to do with that? Time is just another reminder of one more thing…