Ups and Downs

That's been my year. Ups and downs, in insane succession. In 2006 I hit a ton of milestones all in a row - graduated college, got my first "real" job, moved to my first apartment, got married, bought my first house. That was a major year. And I remember at the end of it thinking how much I'd have to do the next year just to measure up to what had already been accomplished. 2006 was a better year than 2009 has been. I'd like to believe that life gets better every year, but I think I'd be kidding myself if I thought that. Some will be up, some will be down.

In many ways I feel like when Aiden died, I did an about-face on my path to the future and started walking right back in the opposite direction. Now I don't know where I am. Why is that? I was there that day, with them. Until late afternoon I was the only one with them. I was in it, in the thick of it, physically and emotionally. But I wasn't IN it like they were, I'm not Aiden's mother or father, I'm "just" his aunt. Why does it affect me like it does? Does this mean it's that much worse for them? I can't even imagine what that would be like.

I've said before that grief is a funny thing. I think in the past month I have been grieving more than I was the previous few months. I thought I was done with the worst of it? What's going on?

And then there it is. A hope for the future, when I realize that I AM grieving. That I feel like absolute crap for a reason, not because life in general is just bad. That this will happen, it's part of the process. That maybe 2010 will be better than 2009, and maybe I can bring more of the good from this past year with me than I do of the bad. Because there have been ups, they're just hard to see from the bottom of the downs.

God bless the mommies and daddies of angel babies. No one should ever suffer what they do.