It's been a while!

I can’t believe it’s been a month since I have posted. Time just seems to slip away, but thankfully, it’s because Matt and I have been busy with fun things.

We had a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s spending time with friends and family and we took some time off just to hang out at home together.

The New Year has kicked off with bang and we have found ourselves busy with lots of fun activities, including visiting my grandma in TN this past weekend. We had a great time with her and I just love visiting the South. The pace of life is slower, the accents are fabulous and the weather is a bit warmer...just hold the gizzards and turnip greens!

I am thankful for the fun busyness of life right now. For so much of the past year, I have felt so stunned by grief that I felt like I was wading through life in slow motion - although, time has flown by at the same time. What a time warp! I can't believe that it is only two weeks until the one year anniversary of Isaiah's birth and death. One year. Crazy!

We are trying to find a special way to mark the day…or days in our case. It’s a little confusing when you consider we found out he passed away on the second, but he wasn’t born until the third. It feels like we actually need to mark both days…not to let them just slip by with the normal busyness of work and home.

I anticipate that the second will actually be the harder of the two days…as it was last year. The sudden shock of finding out was simply shattering and I fear that I will relive some of the memories of that painful day. Matt and I have decided that we want to volunteer somewhere for the day…with a twofold goal in mind. First, we want to mark the day by giving back to the community in honor of our son. We were so loved and so cared for from the earliest hours of our loss and giving back, serving others just feels right. Secondly, we think this will help keep our hands and minds busy so we don’t have too much time to sit and wallow – although I am sure there will be a bit of that.

We feel like the third, Isaiah’s birthday, should be more of a celebration of our son. Though we have so many sad memories around his death, we have wonderful memories from when I was pregnant with him and treasure the profound impact he had on others even in his death. So in honor of his birthday, we are going to make a fun dinner and birthday cake and celebrate. I may even have to have Chipotle for lunch that day – that was his favorite when I was pregnant.

It seems so strange to be finding a way to mark days of loss but it just feels right. This is the last difficult firsts we have to wade through this year – we have already made it through our due date, a myriad of first holidays he should have been at, birthdays and other important days. God has so lovingly walked with us through this hard first year and I know he will be with us through these tough days.