I enjoy the quiet now as I am alone with my thoughts so infrequently these days. Most of my time is happily spent chasing after Clio or, when she is down for the night, laying on the couch with Leif. We get so little time together now, just the two of us, that I greedily gobble up any time we can share together. In quiet and solitary moments like this my thoughts no longer automatically stray to George's birth and death or if they do I don't have quite the emotional response that I used to have toward them. Two years and some change later I am beginning to be able to look at it from a different perspective- one that isn't shrouded in despair and self-loathing.
What happened was very sad and there are still times when I find myself sobbing at the memory of it all. Mostly now though I'm past all the railing against the universe and fist-shaking. I've accepted what happened and that as a result some aspects of my life have changed for the better and for the worse. Life doesn't feel so lopsided anymore and neither do I feel like my life is cast in the shadow of Unlucky. I've come to recognize that I am a supremely fortunate person who happened to have one supremely unlucky thing happen to me. It has taken me some time to reach that conclusion about the direction my life has taken since that day in March, two years ago, but it is now a conclusion that I feel at peace with. Any regrets about the choices we made or questions that I've had about how things could have turned out had stars aligned differently are all but non-existent these days. I look at my daughter smiling and happy and my husband beaming with love and there is no question in my mind that I am right where I want to be.
George's existence has been woven into the tapestry of my life. Even in his absence he is more present than I had dreamed possible. During the first year and a half after his birth I could only see that portion of my tapestry which was immediately connected to his death. It was dark and so hard to look at that I could not even imagine it being anything else. Now I stand back and see that his part of my tapestry is profoundly beautiful. It is woven in and out of the entirety and has changed the contours and colors of my life. It isn't perfect, my life's tapestry, but it is my own and I think it is beautiful. All of it. Even the ugly and sad bits.
Right now, at this moment, where I am is this...
I miss him and my life is full and I am happy.
Where I was last year.
Where you can find more information about the Right Where I Am project.
