The first year

We have survived 365 days with out our daughter. 8,760 hours have passed by in pure hell. Her triplet sisters have missed their other "3rd" for 525,600 minutes. Amarah has been missed every second of every day for 31,536,000 seconds. That was only one year. The years will keep ticking on. We have 40-50 more years on this earth to do this. Even longer for her siblings. Every day, the hope is to get just a little bit more used to the agony. We have to practice every day at being successfully miserable. Our children have gotten used to seeing mommy and daddy cry. Its gotten to a point that they just keep going about their business or offer sweet hugs and words of comfort. That's how normal it has become.

I still just cant believe its all our reality. One year later, I still have her bed in the room, and her cloths in the closet. She was one size smaller than her sisters, so when they out grew their cloths, Amarah then got to wear those cloths. So now as her sisters have outgrown cloths over the year, I still feel the need to save the cloths for her. At some point I have to get myself strong enough to break that cycle. Laundry has become such a constant source of pain because I keep washing her cloths and keep putting them away. I hear myself crying over the laundry and get frustrated with myself that I wont just pack her cloths up. I have to, but its just so hard. I've found myself so pathetic and desperate that I wrap the sleeves of her shirt around my neck, hoping to remember feeling her hugs. It helps not even one little bit. Even as I sit hear admitting all this I can't stop crying. I just want hold her and smell her. All traces of her smell are long gone. So I have caught myself laying under her bed looking for toys that maybe she was the last one to touch. So I haven't cleaned under her bed. I just crawl under it at times and look at the few toys she left there, imagining her sweet tiny fingers holding that toy.

In the beginning, one year seemed so far away. How were we ever going to survive that long? We have gotten used to the pain a little bit, but I had hoped it would be much, much easier by this time. The last few days I have tried to trick myself, saying that I'm going to be fine for the anniversary date. That I am just ready to be done with the first year. I'm ready to be done with all the firsts without. And that's true, But I think what I'm really thinking is, I'm just ready for this to be easier. The mind and body get so tired of being sad. I miss being happy, I miss being able to make my family happy. One year has gone by and it really has not gotten much easier. We are just getting used to being miserable. But we will keep practicing every single day, and hope that one day it becomes easier and not just normal. One year down, many, many, many more long years to go.