Rebirth of the seasons

Last Wednesday, March 24th was Garrett's one year birthday.  I would have posted earlier about it, but I've been super busy since then.  I'm still super busy.  In fact, I'm always super busy.  But I figured if I let more time go by it would cease to be relevant, and I would forget the emotions I was experiencing.  So here I am making time.

Garrett's birthday also happens to coincide with Kevin's birthday.  That makes it especially tough.  I mentioned this to Kevin before his birthday to find out if he wanted to do anything to commemorate the event, but he doesn't want the sadness of the event to make others uncomfortable when they are trying to celebrate his birthday.  So I decided to have my little pity party all by myself.  I allowed myself time to be alone with my emotions so that I could deal with them and then have the ability to focus on Kevin without allowing the sadness of Garrett's birth to overshadow Kevin's birthday.  That strategy seemed to work well.

I took some time away from everyone and looked over old pictures and videos of our little guy.  I had myself a good cry and then treated myself to lunch with my husband.  I had a lot of people tell me that they can't believe it's already been a year, but I keep thinking to myself, "It's only been a year?!"  It seems longer to me!  It seems like I'm moving in slow motion trying to reach our goal.  To say we've had a lot happen in the past year is an understatement.

We're also approaching the anniversary of Garrett's death.  I'm finding this to be even more difficult as things keep bringing me back to the events and emotions surrounding it.  Although the circumstance of his birth is tragic, it was characterized by emotions that were not altogether sad.  Certainly fear was associated with it, but there was that time of uncertainty tinged with cautious optimism because he was born alive.  But his death on the other hand is only characterized by sadness.

Garrett's death was on April 7th, but the memorial service just happened to coincide with Easter Sunday.  All the things that we do for Easter and in the Spring bring me back to that time.  My family is coming in to celebrate Savannah's birthday which is April 2nd.  They will also be here for Easter Sunday, and it seems like deja vu in a way.

This past weekend I cleaned out the little memorial garden that my parents and I made for Sierra and Garrett, and it brought back all those memories and emotions when we were creating it for them.  Spring and the associated rebirth of the seasons used to be a time that reminded me of life and vitality and optimism, but it's seeming to have the opposite effect on me this year.  Can I hope for a time when this change of season doesn't seem so dark?