It has been nine months since we said hello and see you again someday to Lucy.  The 28th of each month brings on a deeper sadness for me than all of the other days.  I think of her constantly and am always missing her, but the 28th just hurts the most.

Each month, the time that she was with us gets further and further away.  She will never be forgotten, but it hurts that life goes on and it goes on without her here.  I should be taking her nine month photo today.  She would be sitting up on her own, a milestone that we would have cheered her on through just like the many she would have accomplished before.

I don’t get less sad as time goes on.  You never get over death.  I have learned to live with grief while still enjoying the days that I have been given, but it is not always easy.  I have learned that life can be filled with lots of tears and lots of laughter, and both are valid.

Right after we lost Lucy, our counselor and friend read this poem to us.  I immediately loved it, but it seems to ring truer with me as time goes on and I walk hand in hand with sorrow.

 

“Love Sorrow

Love sorrow. She is yours now, and you must
take care of what has been
given. Brush her hair, help her
into her little coat, hold her hand,
especially when crossing a street. For, think,

what if you should lose her? Then you would be
sorrow yourself; her drawn face, her sleeplessness
would be yours. Take care, touch
her forehead that she feel herself not so

utterly alone. And smile, that she does not
altogether forget the world before the lesson.
Have patience in abundance. And do not
ever lie or ever leave her even for a moment

by herself, which is to say, possibly, again,
abandoned. She is strange, mute, difficult,
sometimes unmanageable but, remember, she is a child.
And amazing things can happen. And you may see,

as the two of you go
walking together in the morning light, how
little by little she relaxes; she looks about her;
she begins to grow.”

― Mary Oliver, Red Bird