Letting Go

There are moments.. certain snippets in our days and in time that we are brought back to a moment. There are pivotal moments that we remember.. 'this was the moment when.' The time when we realized we were in love with our significant other, the moment we realized we were meant to be a parent. My moment I wanted to reflect on was when I realized it was time to let go. To let go of the death of Savanna. I talked about it a bit in my last post but I wanted to expand on it. To let those know who are not yet there that the moment does exist. It is by no means easy and the time in which it takes for someone to get there could take longer or less. There is no time frame, no deadlines when it comes to grief. It is personal and it is your own. And although the experiences of Savanna's death are sadly so similar to so many others.. in no way do I know their pain exactly. I can only know my own personal pain, and from that I am in hopes that I can somehow relate. I don't know how they feel, but I do know how I feel.. and any morsel of pain that I feel is incomprehensible.
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So let me take you back. Back to the Thursday after Mother's Day. It was the 12th. As many of you know that day was the 6 month angel-versary of Savanna being gone. Another hard day.. and I was having a rather rough time with Mother's Day just passing by as well. I came home to an empty house. (J was still at work). I got the mail and there was a package in their for me from our Midwife O. She sent me a beautiful card with such heartfelt words. The card had come in a small package. As I read on her last line took my breath away... 

"The world is a brighter, warmer, and more loving place because of you."

"I wanted you to have this scale. It is the first thing to touch Savanna's skin besides your loving arms. it has not been used by another baby since her birth so i thought you might like having it."

My hands began to shake and tears welled in my eyes. As I reached into the small box, my hand grazed across soft terry cloth. I pulled it out and found the scale that was used.

A million things ran through my mind. I clutched that piece of cloth and hugged it to my chest. As I fell to my knees and sobbed in the middle of my kitchen floor.. it's as if the Lord himself with Savanna alongside him came down and laid their hands upon me. In an instant, her birth flashed before my mind. Every small detail, every moment. The pain, the joy, the exhaustion, the excitement, the wonder, the anxiety, the nerves, the pure enjoyment and innocence. And in that instant the flash of her sweet face. The first time I laid my eyes upon her as O pulled her from me and laid her on my chest. That moment washed over me. And as the warmth of the Lord and the love of my daughter completely overtook every fiber of my being, it all made sense in that instant. It was OK to let go of her death. She is OK and she's waiting for me. It was OK to let go of the record on repeat from that day. It didn't mean I was letting go of her or the rest of her memories. I was simply putting her death to rest. I was accepting that yes this is my life. And although I wish I could change it, I wish I could take it back... I can't. But most importantly clutching this soft cloth so close to my heart, knowing this was the first thing her sweet soft skin laid upon (next to me) made me remember that she lived.

I have been trying to get that point across to so many others since her death.. and maybe part of myself hadn't come to terms with it. Trying to convince others was in retrospect myself trying to convince myself. But right then and there that May 12th day, I finally realized it. I finally accepted it. And in that small moment of time I let it go. I accepted that this was her fate all along. Whether or not I like it is not the reason at hand. It is the fact that this is what it has to be. And so it became so painstakingly clear. My life is to not be defined by her death but by her life. her life of 38 weeks in my belly and 7 months and 15 days on this earth. That is what is to help define me and mold me into the Christian, Wife, Mother, Daughter, and Friend I am and am becoming. Her life has helped me to become the person I am. And that my friends is what is most important. Her death was and continues to be a painstaking reality. But I don't have to live my life dwelling on the questions, beating myself up and continuously asking why. I'll get my answers one day, not in this Earthly life... but one day I will.
For now, I will live and love for the life my daughter lived, for the life she breathed into her existence. The existence she breathed into me. That my friends is what it is about. 
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Here are a few pictures of Savanna just hours old getting her measurements and getting ready to be weighed.

Savanna Dawn Bogue

March 28, 2010 @ 3:57 PM

7lbs 0oz. 19.5 inches long

Back again..

Well... wow! Where have I been??  I have received so many emails and messages in the last couple months checking in. I cannot tell you how much it warms my heart to know complete strangers find time enough in their days to check on me and see how I am doing. Well... life has been giving me something to be busy about! With the recent new job, the training was intense and the hours were something to get used to. Waking up at 3 AM and not getting home until 4 PM (sometimes 7 PM) took a toll on this 8-5 girl. The couch was like quicksand. As soon as I sat.. that's all she wrote. I wasn't getting up and I wasn't going to do anything else that required too much thought or effort. Unfortunately my little safe haven suffered. Oh how I have missed this space. Each night I would go to bed thinking about what I would have blogged about. I have finally gotten it together, and here I am... hopefully at full force again. There's blogs to catch up with, people to talk to and things to be said. So I am happy to say I am here to stay.. and although I may not have a blog a day as I did before.. there will be more then one every couple months! After all, I owe it to this space and the wonderful people I've 'met' to a part of my healing.
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Well, this past Sunday was 7 months. 7 months since she's been gone. That point is coming where she has been dead longer then alive. She lived for an entire 7 months and 15 days. I'm not sure why this 'milestone' ways so heavily on my heart. More then Mother's Day or even Easter. I dread this day more then I even dread her first angel-versary. Mostly I think because it signifies time lost. It means we have begun to make more memories in her death then in her life. That is what pains me most. I will have more memories of going to her gravesite, of sending balloons to heaven, of sitting in her room trying to imagine her still there.. then I will of actual feasible memories of her. I won't get to see her first steps, her first day of school. I'm only left with my imagination. And now that it comes that she's been gone longer then she was alive.. I am forced to realize the reality of my life.

I can say though, that I do have better days now. Not so many bad. Surviving has become second nature. In the beginning, it was an everyday struggle. Now it's a kind of new normal. Although the sting doesn't hurt as much, the hole doesn't seem quite as hollow, and the black hole seems to have started to form a bottom.. there are days where the black hole bottoms out and the light disappears. I suspect it will always be like this forever and ever. That's something that I can't seem to wrap my whole brain around. As of now, I have gone 7 months and 2 days without her. I have made it to this point when I didn't even think I would make it through a single hour, day or week. So to keep going.. well it should just get easier right? That's what I hope for. And for the most part it is more bearable. But it's the quiet moments that it becomes difficult. It's the moments of stillness and empty that I miss her most. The times when I come home to an empty home and clean floors. The holidays don't seem to bother me as much. It's the smaller stuff I miss. It's the small stuff that matters.

Her room still remains her room. Her smell still ever so present. It's faint, but it's there. I can't imagine not walking into her room and not smelling her sweet smell. All her things still in their places... I have thought about boxing it up and putting it in the attic. I even went so far as to get boxes. I placed her blankets from the linen closet in there and her bathroom stuff.. but that's as far as I got. I can't bring myself to physically take her clothes from the hangers hanging in the closet. I can't take her dirty clothes out of the hamper and wash them and put them away. I can't move the pillow from her changer that still has an ever so apparent imprint of her sweet little head. I can't take the diapers out her diaper holder. The powder, the butt paste, the wipes and warmer are still in its place. I can't imagine it being any other way. I know she's gone. And I know she's not coming back. But if I pack it all up.. it feels as if I'm packing her up with it. I've accepted her fate, I've accepted my 'new life' but I can't accept the fact that I have to let her go. To me, if I let go.. I'm letting go of all she was and is.

I have finally gotten to a point that I've let go of her death. Every now and then a flash of that night will succomb my mind, but I have let go of finding any meaning in it. It used to be that I re-ran that day over and over.. figuring out what I could have done differently. If I was just a couple minutes later or ahead.. maybe if I fed her something different.. or dressed her in something differently. Maybe if I burped her longer or even less.. maybe I should have stayed home. I have now come to accept that no matter the circumstances, the place or the time. She still would have gone. There was nothing I could have done to change that. As a mother it seemed an impossible conclusion. I am her protector, her caregiver. But in 7 months, the results haven't changed. And beating myself up, questioning my abilities as a mother didn't change a damn thing. It still remains--it is what it is. Finding an 'answer' as to 'why' or 'how' will not change the outcome. So, I have let it go. Let go of the death. Let go of the questioniong. And in doing so, I have found that it doesn't mean I love her less. It doesn't mean that the other good memories will go away too. What I have found is that the good memories have come flooding back. Small details I had forgotten came into focus. It's like that file folder in my mind finally got unlocked. And now, I can be happy when I think of her. I can smile when I see her picture. I can laugh as I think of all the good times. And I can do this without the horrendous day of November 12 haunting near.

It's not to say I don't think of that day, I do. Who wouldn't? But I no longer question that day. I allow that day to be what it is and I don't let it define who I am. I don't let it define my daughter's life. Because that's the thing.. I know she died.. I am reminded of it everyday.. but what I want to remember and I want the world to know is that she lived. She lived and she loved and I am thankful everyday for those 7 months and 15 days she was allowed with me.

I just love her face in this one. She had many of them!