Thanks

I am fast approaching the one year mark and I have a wide array of emotions. One minute I am driving in the car singing at the top of my lungs (yes my girls think I am nuts) and the next I am crying my eyes out. (yes they thing I am nuts)

Tonight I met my sister's new soon-to-be in laws. They seem great. She is lucky to have such a great family to marry into. Tonight I found myself desperately wanting to shout out that I didn't just have the 3 beautiful girls that they could see, but I had 4. I have a son. You just can't see him. He is just as beautiful and vibrant as the girls. But he is no longer with me.

One of his sweet sisters took a look at Isabella's innocent face and blue eyes and told me how lucky I was to have such a beautiful little girl. I know I am lucky. But my son. Oh he was beautiful. Never before have I seen such an angelic baby. And he truly is angelic.

I was going through the pictures for a project I am doing, I came across Daxton's funeral. After I got over how great my hair was, how lucky I was to find two amazing dresses and a skirt, and how "skinny" I was, I cried. Really? Is that my baby laying in the coffin? Yes. I said the coffin. It sounds horrid. But he really was laying there. It really was his sweet little body, void of his vibrant spirit. And I cried. Of course I cried.

You know I was also looking at the pictures and it is interesting the "funeral" face that people have. You have seen it. If you have ever lost someone you love, you have seen the "funeral" face. Is it morbid that I actually cracked up over that? I had the "funeral" face. The people around me had the "funeral" face. Maybe that is just how I dealt with the grief last night. I don't know.

Tonight I played a much needed game with my "sisters." Technically they aren't my sisters, but I know that I can count on them no matter what. Without back into some sort of reality, without them picking up the pieces of my life for me, without them taking care of me when I needed them, I don't think I would have made it.

The next few weeks are busy. If I keep myself busy maybe it won't seem as bad. Maybe it won't be as hard. I don't know. Some might say I should be over it by now. But I am not. I am not falling on the closet floor crying but my heart still feels like it has been ripped into a thousand pieces. I have come upon a "new" normal. I don't yet know if I like it or care to stay very long, but it is there. The "new" normal. Each day is a new day. I never truly know when the waves of grief will come. They don't come as frequently as they used to, but they are still there and still just as intense as they were when I first got "the call."

We have a trip planned to California with some friends who lost their little girl the same week Daxton died. We are going to visit amusement parks, zoos, the beach. Pretty much we are running away. Running from the pain. Running somewhere new. I don't know how it will go, but I am up for anything. I am ready for anything.