Seven Months: Remembering

Somehow seven months has not hit me as hard. I even had to remind myself that today was the day. Maybe it’s because after we hit six months, which seems longer than I can possibly imagine living without my daughter, seven months seems anti-climactic in its shadow. Maybe it’s because all of December has been so incredibly hard that there’s just no way that this particular day could possibly be any worse.

It’s been a difficult few days. It still amazes me the way the grief swings like it does. After Hudson’s birthday week, which was incredibly emotional from start to finish, I began to feel like I was recovering somewhat in the beginning part of last week. And then over the last few days, it just hit me again, but this time, more subtly. Spending two full days at home tends to highlight all that’s missing from our lives, I guess. Living without her just sucks. It absolutely sucks. Sometimes, there’s just no other way to say it.

Anyway, I haven’t felt a whole lot of inspiration to write, but today is a remembering day. I’ve done an enormous amount of remembering this month already, both here on the blog and in real life. Making our holiday cards entailed going through lots and lots of pictures trying to decide which ones to include. Same with decorating the tree—we bought several ornament frames to hang her pictures on what is essentially a 2-foot memorial Christmas tree, full of turtle ornaments, Hudson’s pictures, and a few other ornaments that remind us of others in our lives we’ve lost. Because we couldn’t have a tree without a little bit of hope, there are also several penguin ornaments (a few of which we already had) and a pewter star that reads “Hope.” Lots of remembering already done, and more still to be done with Christmas coming up next week.

So once again, I’ll let a few pictures tell a sweet story of Hudson’s first real snow fun (her first snow day was actually in March 2009, when she was only three months old, so she couldn’t really play in it). It was apropos that when I woke up this morning, the back porch and entire back yard were lightly dusted with snow, since this is what I was already going to post about today. Maybe another little sign from my girl. As you will see, here and later in January and February, when I post even better snow play memories, she was a snow-lover, just like her mama.

And finally, because it is a precious December memory, and because, amazingly, it was taken exactly one year ago today, on December 13, 2009, and most importantly, because it reveals, again, what a beautiful and loving child our girl was, here’s a little video memory treat (with Uncle Jason laughing in the background):

Loving you and just missing you so very much, my girl.  Wishing with all my might that you were here to blow me a sweet kiss right now.