Tonight I'm angry. Most days I'm strong and focus on the wide endless love of Vivian. Not right now. Triggers in my night act like an autonomic response, depressing the rewind button in my visual memory replaying the hardest of days... My pregnancy was hard having cholestasis and all that it encompassed physically and emotionally. Vivian died. Our grief individually, as husband & wife, and as a family have been one tumultuous road. Days after losing her, my Mom & I went shopping for something for me to wear at her memorial service. We sit down at a table with four chairs and within a few minutes, a man asked if he could use the two other chairs. We were unaware as he sat down that he was holding a baby girl. The tears just flowed as we silently finished our sandwiches with the two of them at our table frolicking and smiling at each other. Josh went to the hardware store early just before 7:00am one weekday morning and as he's in the lumber aisle, a Dad holding the hand of a sweet toddler girl pass by him; she looks back at Josh with a gaze that draws him in. Within the same week, I went to the mall by myself and I decide to stop in a gift shop for women and there in the middle of the store is a display with the exact pink rose colored stuffed bunny I bought Vivian when I found out we were having a baby girl. There's no other baby/toddler items in the store! In December, Josh & I visited the Angel of Hope Memorial with Vivian's name on the wall. As we're heading out of the park (there wasn't another soul in sight during our walk over or during our visit), we see a young vibrant couple coming toward us. She is clearly pregnant and right behind her is a photographer. The park is large and we happen to cross paths with them? Could we be any more diametrically opposed?! Instance after instance seemed as if a knife already in our open flesh wounds was being twisted. Tonight I don't want to do anything good with what we've been through. Tonight I don't want to be strong. Tonight... I just want to carry her.

Vivian...11 months today. In any given day, I think of you too many times to count. I wonder what you would be doing, what your giggles would sound like, and the endless ways in which your brothers would torment and tease you. Today I ordered more pictures to begin putting together your scrapbook. I wanted more. I longed for more visuals of us celebrating you, of us capturing doing life with you. There wasn't even a single picture of me with my full on baby belly. Oh I was cute, too. There wasn't a picture of Mom & I spending the day in St. Louis shopping for all things Vivian. The day was filled with such joy and love! Anticipating, preparing, dreaming and planning for your arrival. The two of us with our love for fabric oodled over the most beautiful dresses we'd ever seen in a baby boutique. To be immersed in a day of all things girly and feminine seemed a right of passage...soon to be three generations doing life together...Mother, Daughter and Granddaughter. What a gift. We should've taken more pictures. Some details of memories are already fading. I stop to remind myself that no amount of pictures would ever truly capture or depict the love and joy of you. A deep soul love that was created before you were ever visible to us.