9 Months & Natures Gifts

Not sure where the time has gone? Taking things day by day doesn't make anything easier or make time pass slower. The earth still spins no matter how much someone's life has stopped. Have things got any easier? Not one bit! I cant help but stress how it can feel like an eternity since I've held her but yet it seems like yesterday since I lost her. The important thing is I still remember what her hugs feel like, what her chubby cheeks feel like when I pushed my kiss into them, her head on my shoulder and her smell! I can still smell her! Her clothes still smell like her when I hug them, and I can still picture her in each outfit. I see her wear a few of her outfits in my dreams then I go and find them. Her bath stuff still sits in the same spot in our bathroom and every once in a while I smell it or wash my hands with it just to have the scent linger. From once single lingering sent of her sheds tears running down my face and a pain in my heart. I need to smell those smells and see those things to remember her existence. To feel comfort. The comfort I find these days cannot be handed to me. Scott comforts me by listening and understanding or just holding me tight but sometimes we are feeling the same pain and we need someone to comfort us both. Our kids comfort us by seeing them happy, their laughter, their stories of remembering their sister or just simply being their to keep us going. The most comfort I find is in nature itself. Sometimes Sunny days can hurt the most, thinking how I had to move her all around the living room at certain times each day because the sun would shine in our windows onto her and either make her hot or squint from the heat and the rays. Sunny days make me sad because I picture us going for a walk, which we never got to do because as soon as the nice warm weather came she became sick. But to look at the sun and see its beauty and how it can make water look from a reflection, how it can look shining through trees or peeking behind clouds with sun rays shining down from every direction, that's where I find comfort. I know the sun will only last for a certain amount of hours in the day then we will see the beauty in the sunsets. All the colors in the horizon and how the sky becomes natures canvas of experiencing gods creations. Keely was one of Gods creations and she has become part of that sunshine, part of those sun rays and a part of the beautiful sunsets. I can feel her while sitting in my back yard, closing my eyes, listening to the wind blow, hearing the sway of the trees in unison and any warmth or cool breeze on my face. I've never felt or noticed the beauty of mother nature until my baby girl became a part of it. My eyes have been opened and I see the world in a whole new perspective. A way I don't think I would have ever noticed if this hadn't happened to me. Butterflies for example; I've never seen as many butterflies as I seen last summer. One would flitter by or around me and I would sit there and watch it until it was out of sight. Sometimes it just felt as though they were trying to get my attention, like it was Keely saying "look at me mommy, watch me!" we've had butterflies land on us and stay there. One on the back of Scott's head, then jumped to me and stayed on my chest, then onto jord's finger. The day after Keelys funeral (July 4th) in the morning while I was still asleep Scott, my mom and Auntie Kris were out on our back deck, I heard a knock on our bedroom door and when I looked out Scott was standing with a butterfly on his shoulder that he said had been sitting there for 20 minutes, then flitted away once I got to see it. A lot of our signs come from nature and butterflies particularly hold a huge significance to Keelys life. When fall time came the golden leaves from the frosted trees would fall to the ground and sway in the same motion as hundreds of butterflies flying around, never noticed that before either. All of the bright fall colors made a beautiful sight to look at while driving or just in our own backyard. Rainbows...rainbows make me cry, did I cry before to see a rainbow? Not ever. Now I see them and see such beauty in them and wonder how their created. Most would take a rainbow for a rainbow, so what they come after it rains. But now I wonder why they come and how all those beautiful colors are evenly matched of their width and brightness throughout. The
Last rainbow we saw had 8 different colors, i realized I've never a really counted them before and wonder how many people actually do. It is such a beautiful gift. We see the night sky and the shape of the moon, the size of it or how bright its shining, sometimes how it lights of the entire ground and trees as if it were a spotlight. We see all the beautiful stars shining brightly knowing their millions of lights years away, naturally we think its all a part of Keely. Theres one star we have picked out of the sky each night that we think is Keelys star. It always seems to be first first star that appears. Stepping out our front door it's directly straight ahead, it always seems to be the brightest star. If Scott and I are apart we will message each other to say Keelys star is out and we both know exactly where to look. We even feel we saw it each night we were away from home while in Hawaii. These things are our only connection to our daughter not fully knowing where she is or what she's doing, but we take these beautiful wonders, images and sounds and know that if this is what surrounds us daily that it has to be beautiful where she is. I always wonder just like any parent worries about their child if she's okay and happy? Here on earth or in heaven you always worry. She sends us continuous signs through mother nature. The great thing about nature is that I know for the rest of my life I will continue to see these creations over and over again, day in and day out and have this connection that most will never feel, see or experience. This doesn't take my heartache away but brings some solace to a broken, shattered mother who has lost all hope and hopes to one day find that light at the end of the path.
Today on the 8 month mark of my grief journey I will cry some more (probably alot more since 5am this morning) feel the pain as I do everyday and continue to wear this heavy coat that weighs me down and can only hope for perhaps a beautiful sunset and starry sky at the end of the day.

Sometimes we are only given a few minutes to be with someone we love, and thousands of hours to spend thinking about them

Love you and miss you my little girl xoxo Mommy

Months of Sadness

It has been almost three months since I have last posted. In this past three months it has been the most deepest darkest struggle in remaining to continue our life without Keely. not just for myself but for Scott and our three children. Knowing my own pain and sometimes having to push it aside because her brothers and sister are feeling it as well. Some days (most days) are a struggle to get up and put one foot in front of the other while you walk around with this pain worn like a heavy coat. The days I don't have a choice to decide my feelings and have to get up and go about my day are days that you could tell me my daughter died and it's hard for me to believe as I sit and convince myself this is true. It is still somedays just as much of a shock that she Keely is gone and will never be back. As time wears on this thought becomes much harder to believe and understand as a parent. Once you've convinced yourself it starts to feel like there is no end in sight to your hurt and sadness, because you as her mother know that the only thing that's ever going to subside this hurt is having her back. This is a daily struggle for me, I am either feeling every ounce of anguish or trying to convince my sub concious my disbelief. I purchase as many support books that can relate to my everyday life now to try and understand and get a grasp on things of how other parents get through such a dark place and possibly come out at the other end of the tunnel with positivity again and to be able to feel really happy inside. Of course with having Austin, Shaely and Jordan helps immensely with getting through our days and the support Scott and I have for one another. I feel like I have to find my true self again, I have to set the boundaries for this new "normal" I've been living for the past eight months. Some way some how Keely was a special gift, nobody would argue this statement! I guess I could continue to look at it in a way that we've been ripped off and robbed as parents and that this higher being has things out for us.....but I also know that we are good people, so I cannot agree to that! Unfortunately this kind of stuff doesn't happen to "bad" people. I know this because of the several bereaved parents we've met along our journey. Each one of them are very special people and would do ANYTHING for their children and family. It's the people that God knows will love this angel unconditionally and care for him/her the way he needs them too, because in time they are going right back to him to tell him of these special gifts these parents have and how much they can love. This stuff does not happen to people who don't deserve children or unwanted children this kind of stuff happens to beautiful, unselfish parents. I've recently been taking a deeper look into things and the way our life has been handed to us. What for some reason we were meant to deal with? It's scary to not know how you as a person will end up. This is how im seeing things.....I've recognized that On this journey I've been given a path, it's a winding path with no sun and only huge mountains that you cannot go under, hurdles that we have to continuously get over, a bottomless never ending ocean, it's a scary dark path that we can only feel our way through and hope to find the sunshine at the end of it. There are two roads, with neither of them being any easier, both will be a constant struggle to get through. Each path knocks you down but it's whether you decide to stay down or get back up? One will lead you in the wrong direction of self destruction and self pity and the other will convince you that there are beautiful things along this dreary path. This is the path where you choose to fight. Some days you will find the sun peeking through the clouds because you allow yourself that much. There are little gifts all along this path but you have to look for them and they are not easy to find. Although the path never ends, as you walk along it, it gets a little straighter, a little wider and a little brighter at the end. This is how I see my grief journey. I cannot go over, under or around it, I have to go through it, and I am the only person that can make the path what it's going to be. I can look and see all the hardships ahead, give up and sit in the middle of it and wallow in self pity? Or I can choose to keep getting back up? There will be moments that I want to give up but hopefully don't. I know the path is long but I choose to reinvest what little energy I have into it for the sake of what Keelys been through in her short time here. I've chosen giving up is unacceptable although it is going to continue to be a devastating path. By no means am I saying I am strong or brave but maybe have a tiny bit of courage after a sorrowfull loss. Things have not been easy for me and I'm sure will continue to get worse before they get better. I will still continue to cry everyday, probably scream at times because the pain is still so unbearable but one day I hope to be a better person because of all the suffering I've been through. Ive said in my previous blogs and still say today that Keely is what got me through her diagnosis and made me see my potential as a great mother to my terminally I'll daughter. I've thought since her passing she's not here to get me through this and she's the only one who can. Then I realized....she has a legacy, I'm going to take her beautiful spirit and continue it. It was shared with me and I hope one day to share it with others. In the past eight months since Keely's been gone I've seen the beauty that nature really has to offer, it's my only connection I have to my daughter other than my dreams. I choose to see these glimpses as gifts and have chosen to not give them up! I've held an angel in my arms in this lifetime and it was for a reason, I may never find out what that reason is but if there's a glimmer of hope i'll continue to search. There are moments in your life that make you and sets the course of who your going to be. Sometimes their little, subtle moments, sometimes their big moments you never saw coming. No one asks for their life to change, but it does. It's what you do afterwards that counts, that's when you find out who you are.

Life is too ironic to fully understand. It takes sadness to know what happiness is, noise to appreciate silence and absence to value presence

Love my little Keely, such a big miracle in such a little girl <3