December

Here we are. Last year, the first of December brought the strangest combination of overwhelming anxiety, pure and real happiness, and terror. All of those emotions resurface just a bit as I sit here on the cusp of this next December of firsts. Lennox will turn one on the sixteenth. He is a happy, funny, conniving, brilliant, loving, gentle boy for whom we are so grateful every day. This boy has grown our hearts and they burst with pride and love again and again.

We will celebrate the day Ella was born into this world. We will love her, sing to her, release balloons for her. What I would give to hug her and kiss her, tell her I love her and watch her grow. Lennox recognizes Ella's picture. Perhaps it's because we have so many displayed in our home but a spark flickers inside me each time he reaches for her face and laughs. I hope she visits him. I hope they have a special bond that transcends the limits we perceive on this world.

Last December seems like both moments and worlds behind us. I can't believe we've survived a year. It's so hard to explain holding such grief and loss for our Ella and such love and happiness for our Lennox all at once. One does not cancel the other out. I've had to learn to let them coexist. To love with all of these feelings- through them, in spite of them, because of them- has been such a journey already.

I remember vividly how I felt and what I was thinking in the first picture. I was being taken into C-Section Room 1, preparing for the worst and hoping for a miracle. The same miracle I had hoped for every two weeks when the ultrasound wand was placed on my belly and I held my breath waiting for them to tell me they had been wrong. I appreciate that this moment was captured. I appreciate the so many things the people of Bronson did for us to help us take home every moment, every feeling, every sound we could. All of our heartbeat recordings were put to music. Lennox's to the lullaby rendition of Sweet Child of Mine, Ella's to Stairway to Heaven, and the four of us to Three Little Birds. These songs, both the originals and our heartbeat-sprinkled lullabies, play in my car when I need them. I know that it's Ella. This is how she comforts me.

I'll need her a lot in the next few weeks as I revisit the memories of their birth, Ella's life, her death, her funeral and all of the love and support that came to us from every direction.

Ella was here. I have a daughter in heaven. And I say her name every day.