When My Daughter is Dead, and It’s Her Birthday

[Today] is my daughter’s second (still)birthday.

I don’t know what to say.

If you're reading this, you probably know what I mean.

How to describe the rippling ache whose circles widen but never disappear?

How to communicate how she is still an important part of my family, my life, even though she is dead?

How to answer those who tell me to move on, that it’s unhealthy and uncomfortable, and couldn’t I just shut up about this whole dead baby thing already?

How to celebrate her birthday when she is not here to enjoy it, when the decisions I must make of how to remember her are incapacitating?

Today I'm writing  over at Still Standing Magazine.

Click here to continue reading . . .

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Remember how for Eve's birthday last year we banded together and provided over one hundred copies of a bereavement book for our local hospital's labor and delivery?  This year, we are raising money for Big Brothers Big Sisters, and drawing or wearing birds on our bodies, to celebrate my sweet girl.  More details here!