Time flickers forwards and back.

I was never told life would get progressively more difficult as time went on... but it does, and I go forward. The past is what creates my present. To ignore that past is to ignore the substance of me.
I am slowly learning to accept and embrace all the events in my life that I had previously tried to erase or forget. Erasing leaves a smudge that is evidence of the action. Forgetting never really works. Wishing for what was or what could have been just leads to more pain. NOW I understand what living in the present means. I hope!

THe candle from Kai's "butsudan" that we lit at his memorial service.

It's been 15 months. Wow. I'm often confused. Sometimes it feels like time has gone too quickly - separating us by more and more time. Other times it feels like hardly any time has passed - I cry and the pain feels as strong it did a year before. This last 15 months have been a time of opposing emotions/feelings; happiness that your memory is with me but sadness that you are not physically here; anger that you seem to have died for no reason and calmness because of everything I learned from dealing with the grief of losing you; hope because I believe your energy is here with us, helping us and despair because I just want to be with you now!

They were right. As time continues on that unbearable pain has moved to the background of my days. It still comes forward at time - heart wrenching as ever, but it doesn't last nearly as long as it did a year ago or 6 months ago.

I'm lucky that I do have friends that know I need to talk about him every once in a while. He's a part of our family so, just as I talk about my living child or my deceased parent, I also talk about my baby boy. "I loved having a midwife for my son's birth last year.", "Do you think Kai would have been artistic like his father and I?", "Hopefully Kai wouldn't have gotten my crazy frizzy hair!", "Yes, I have two children.", "Isn't this cute? Kai would be adorable in this!". I do not believe that I need to pretend that my pregnancy and time with him never existed.

A friend of mine who lost her infant son five years ago recently realized that she hadn't fully dealt with her emotions. I was very proud of her when she told me last week that she was able to move her infant's photo out of the walk in closet/dressing room and onto the top of her dresser where her other three boys (all younger) pictures are. Now she has all four of her sons together where she can see them everyday and smile.