Juliet: Right Where I Am 2017: 8 months 15 days

You were supposed to be our rainbow.

We had passed the stages of our previous losses, you were really coming. This was really happening, we were on the home stretch. We were on the countdown...two. Two. I've never wiped the chalk from the board. Two days.

Two days until you were supposed to be here and you were gone. Our precious, longed for, wanted, loved, baby girl had died.

It's hard to remember the very first days and weeks after we lost you. Not because I can't, but because even remembering that depth of darkness is difficult.  It's hard to look back to the   days where I could do nothing. The days when the darkness was all I could see. The days when I could barely breathe. The days when the grief that felt so much like fear was all I could feel.  It's still dark sometimes. It's dark but we can breathe.

So where are we now? We're juggling. Juggling the pain of losing you. Juggling learning to live without you. Juggling the guilt. Juggling the hope.

Your little brother is set to arrive 5 days after your first birthday. I can't call him my rainbow. You were my rainbow. I can't feel the same excitement for his arrival as I did for yours. I'm too scared to do that. But I love him.  I love him, as I love your big sister, and as I love you.

I want you to know you will always be a part of our lives. You have changed us all irrevocably. We will always love you and we speak your name every day.

I’m so grateful to have known you. Those who don't know may question how I can have known you, but I did. I do. I am so grateful for all the gifts you have given me - new friends I feel I've know forever, a gratitude for what I have and a desire to do more and be more. But I wish every day that we never had to say goodbye to you. I still question why and have so many 'what ifs', I wonder if that will ever pass.

Right where I am is a difficult place. I hope and pray every day that you know that we still love you beyond words. I hope you know that you will always be ours and we will always be yours. Death cannot change that. Life cannot change that.

You are etched into my heart and soul, Grace Elizabeth.  I love you, I miss you.

Lynsey: Right Where I Am 2017: 6 years 7 months

It's been 6 years, 7 months.

In the beginning on the 18th of January 2011 our world fell apart and wouldn't be the same again when they told us there was no heartbeat we entered into a room full of silence it felt like our world was crashing down and I was on this rollercoaster of emotions.

It felt like I was trying to put broken glass back together again even through it is still breaking. Still to this day it feels like a bad dream and a blur.

But 6 years on I do truly believe I have been taken on a journey one that I didn't expect to be on, but this journey has shown me many things that were there before but I appreciate them and see them in a different light and it's Lilly that has shown me this. I like to think of Lilly in a far off place like in this little story I wrote.

Once upon a time in a land faraway lives a little girl that her parents named Lilly. She has lovely golden curly hair. Big blue eyes. She is 6 Years old and ready to start primary 2 at school. She is always getting up to mischief with her big sister Hannah and big brother Liam. Lilly loves everything pink and purple. She loves to play in the garden of memories of what was before with her baby Annabelle having tea parties and loves her princess castle, the palace of dreams still to happen.

Lilly has a lovely and very out going personality. She has lots of friends. She misses her family very much and knows her family love her and miss her lots as well. She loves her family saying her name as it soul alive like a beautiful melody. She knows that the sound of her laugh and voice are a beautiful sound that we love to hear so very much.

It is sad that her parents won’t ever be able to see Lilly’s imagination grow and see the look on her face when she learned something new.

Lilly loves to visit her parents in their dreams and always takes comfort to know that they always say her name and carry her with them always in their hearts.

“See you in the gardens of memories and the palace of dreams”

Now through it all I see Lilly is my hopes, my dreams and inspiration. I find her in the light, in nature and when my children laugh and cry. She is the wind messing up my hair and the sun warming my face. She is still our daughter, a wee sister, niece, granddaughter, great-granddaughter and cousin.

She was, is and always will be, our beautiful daughter Lilly.

We will “see you in the gardens of memories and the palace of dreams” xx

~~~~~

You can read Lynsey’s previous posts here:
Right Where I Am 2015: 4 years 4 months

Right Where I Am 2016: 5 years 6 months 28 days

Stacey: Right Where I Am 2017: 4 years 3 months 3 weeks 1 day

Lucky.

4 years ago I went to travelling across Italy for a few weeks with my husband. Heartbroken and inconsolable, I should have been 38 weeks pregnant. Instead my baby had died.

When I think back to those days my heart aches for the person I used to be, the emptiness I felt and the inability to see any future where I could ever be happy. The day we should have been bringing our baby into the world we were in fact in Milan. We went to Church and tried to seek some comfort but none could be found.

That evening we decided to do something to try and mark our daughter’s short life on earth, we went for a meal on a tram across the city. A tiny little thing it was designed to only fit 8 people on, we were all set ready to go and see the sights, drink wine and try to distract ourselves from the terror of our own lives. Typically, though things didn’t work out quite as we planned and a heavily pregnant woman boarded at the last minute.

We spent our evening seething with rage and jealousy watching her. Both of us desperately holding back tears as she drank glass after glass of wine and even requested several stops to smoke. Oh how I hated her. Now I merely pray her and her baby are both safe and well.

Today I have two rainbows, my daughter Florence will be 3 this year and my son Albert is 18 months. Life is busy, crazy busy in fact. Some days I forget to breathe let alone reflect on how lucky I truly am. Sometimes I need to think back, to those dark days of hell just to be able to pause and appreciate what I have now.

I know there are women out there right now going through the worst thing imaginable, the death of their baby. There are men out there desperate to be able to support their partner but silently weeping at night. I know because I’ve been there.

I am so very lucky. The days aren’t always easy but we get by and I try to remember to appreciate every moment.

Yes, I am so very lucky.

~~~~~

You can read Stacey’s previous posts here:

Right Where I Am 2016: 3 years 3 months 2 weeks 2 days
Right Where I Am 2015: 2 years 4 months 3 weeks 5 days
Right Where I Am 2014: 1 year 13 weeks 6 days
Right Where I Am 2013: 15 weeks

Right Where I Am Writing Project 2017

Would anyone be interested in submitting a guest post to us on the theme of where you currently are in your loss journey?

We have been running the Right Where I Am project since 2012 and this is what gave us the initial impetus to set up the blog.

We are in the process of writing our posts for this year's project and will be publishing them over the coming weeks. As always, we would love to feature some more stories too.

Your post should be entitled 'Right Where I Am' followed by the time that has passed since your loss/es. Here is a link to our posts from previous years if that helps:

Right Where I Am

If anyone would like to contribute, please email us at lossthroughthelookingglass@gmail.com or please feel free to comment below with any questions.

Clara, Gemma & Nicole x