Viviana's Birthday (month)

I have wanted to write about her birthday and our celebration for a few weeks now....but time keeps passing and I feel differently each day...kind of like the beginning months after we lost her.

The day was actually great!  The days leading up to were harder.  We started off by sending her off balloons with messages written on them. We went up to her bluff and got to watch them go forever over the water, heading toward Canada....it was beautiful and we were full of smiles! On our walk back to the car, I could not believe how much euphoria I felt...at the time, I even used that word.  I felt bits and pieces of me that felt like the old care free me...I wanted to start leaping down the path and twirl in circles....I would have but my big ol' pregnant belly kept me from doing it.  Trent too felt a renewal he had not felt in a long time.  We both couldn't understand how we felt so good!  Was this the beginning of a new phase?  Was it doing something for her, sending her balloons?  Was it all the prayers and thoughts from our friends and family from afar thinking about us that morning?  Was it that it has been an entire year and we have made it through all the "firsts"?  I still don't know. And once again, as grief does, we were almost fooled into believing this was how we were going to feel from now on....sure, yah, right.....I remember having those thoughts a lot throughout this past year.  "I feel better today, so I have made it to this point.  Wow, I am sure glad because it is pretty dark over there..." Only the next day to feel even worse....  Luckily, I did have the thought that I probably was not over anything and that today, in the moment, I felt really good.  And THAT moment, I will take. Cherish.  Not over analyze...just take it in and be in it at the time.  

As the day went on, we both still felt pretty good as we drove to the ocean to spend the night. We bought some purple flowers, brought some of her things to have a little shrine in our

 hotel room.  We walked the beach for hours, dipped our feet in the freezing water...cut off all of Trent's hair that he had not cut since she died, and threw it in the ocean.  We looked through her book that I made months back, even read to each other from our Viviana journals that we both kept...looking back over the months and seeing the growth from month to month.  Those beginning months were so dark.  Some moments can still be so dark but it does not consume us the way it used to.  We have made it a year.  We are stronger because of her.  We are stronger because of the way we clung to one another through it all.  Something I am so grateful for.  I cannot imagine not having my husband by my side.  Though we are different people from before, and our innocence gone, I know we have come a long way.  

The next day was a bit harder...I think the usual let down after such emotion has been built up and released...  The following week was a lot harder for Trent.  I had much work to do so it was the 2nd week where I began to wear down.  You just never know, still, day to day how you are going to feel.  Overall, I know we are doing much better.  Knuckles helps keep us going as well. Though, even there, I am caught in having worries.  I am approaching the same time frame when we lost Viv.  The likelihood of the same thing happening is so ridiculously low, but still, you just can't help but worry.  I have songs that I sing to Knuckles, and they include lines like "mind your cord, don't you twist, so mama can soon give you a kiss..."  What kind of a nursery rhyme is that?!   Well, here's to another day....