Memories

Today is Penny’s due date.

It’s been 16 weeks since she was born and 11 since she left us. An indescribably difficult 4 months filled with many, many tears. Every new experience, every holiday, every event feels empty with out her, knowing she should be there. Knowing our plans would shift to accommodate her nap or feeding schedule. The pain of her absence evident in the subtleties of each experience, never ceasing to be difficult.

Despite her absence I’m slowly finding more times of peace, times where I almost feel normal. That in and of itself has been difficult. A dance between normality and and guilt. I constantly have to remind myself that she would want me to feel normal, to laugh at a joke, or to feel goofy again. That experiencing those feelings does not erase her or diminish her memory. That she’s not only present in my grief but she can be a part of my joy too. The pain of her passing will always be present, ever changing as time goes by, but she will never truly be gone. Her memory isn’t static and isolated, it’s ever growing.

I’m find ways to make those memories, to incorporate her into each day. I’ve begun writing letters to her, I often work in her garden, and I’m creating a scrapbook of our time together. This painting is another one of those memories. It’s the first painting I have done in a long time, and the first one using a new medium (gouache). It’s dedicated to her on her due date. A family portrait. An illustration which captures our love for her and the warmth of our embrace with tiny Penny sleeping peacefully in our arms. The way it was meant to be today.

This day has occupied my thoughts many times since she was born, even more so since she passed. Her due date looming over me, inching ever closer as the days rolled on. During these last 3 months, I would often pause and remember disbelievingly that I would have still been pregnant with her. A reminder that she was born so, so early. I feared that this day, and the days after, I would finally feel the gravity her loss. The last thread connecting us together, at last broken. That I would be irreversibly separated from her. Yes, each day the time from her physical presence on this earth grows a little bit more, but her memory, her thread, is still here, growing in new ways each day. I know there will still be times where I feel the enormity of her loss, the crushing pain of her absence, but I’m also filled with a little new hope each day, and for that I’m thankful.

My sweet Penny, your time on this earth was bitterly short but in that time you changed me in ways I can’t convey. Your memory continually grows in my heart and I love you more and more each day. I miss you my sweet girl, now and always.