"After Brenna Died"

I caught myself saying those words for the first time yesterday. I rarely say her name, let alone say that she is dead. It was in a perfectly normal conversation, and the words just flowed out of my mouth. It made me stop in mid-sentence. It really caught me off guard. I couldn't believe what I had just said. MY BABY IS DEAD! She's not gone, or missing, or never existed. SHE IS DEAD. In my mind, I picture her peacefully floating up to heaven, but the fact of the matter is SHE IS DEAD! That is a hard reality to recognize.

Never in my life would I imagine that I would be talking about my dead baby. Never. This is not where I saw myself when I pictured my life. Life has changed so much for us since we found out I was pregnant. We are not the same people we were back in December. My son is not as innocent. He has experienced death at a young age, which is something we went through when my step-daughter lost her mother, and something I hoped my son would never have to experience. I have faced death and my own mortality. My husband had to face telling yet another child that thier mother was gone. It was a very scarry time for my family, and we all are different people now.

I ran across this quote form Liz's blog about her daughter, and I love it. It really touched me, and it's so true:

"Our children change us... whether they live or not."

Lois McMaster Bujold