I feel so weird writing. I feel like it’s been so long since I’ve blogged about Kenley. My friend Christine and I were just talking about this last night; about how we feel so far away from our babies. We feel like there is just no time to grieve them properly. It’s not that we want to sit in the grief and spend a full day sobbing crying over losing our children, it’s not that at all, it’s simply that life rushes ahead and you just don’t have time to dedicate to the child you lost in the same way as the children you have that are living.

It’s not fair at all. Sure, the living children require more attention, and time and brain space…but, Kenley deserves that too. I picked up her picture on my bedside yesterday and it was dusty. I brushed off the dust and just sat there holding it, looking at her…looking at the woman holding her in her arms. I don’t know that woman anymore. I don’t know who she is. Who was I then? Who am I now? I am two different people- actually, three. The before me, the after me, and the after me “mom”.

And honestly? I don’t feel like I know ANY of those people anymore.

I don’t know who I am as a person. I don’t know who I am as a wife, or a mother, or a sister, or a daughter. I feel like I’m in a dark room, fumbling around trying to find my way to the other side…but it just keeps going, and going…sometimes the light creeps in from a crack in the wall, or a window…but it’s never enough to help me right my path.

My anxiety has been pretty intense lately. We have a lot of stress hovering over our family currently. We are looking for a bigger house or to build but there is nothing available. There are things that need to get done in our home to make listing our home possible even, so those things will cost money. We thought a problem was fixed with our roof, and well…lets just say it isn’t…and might force us to replace our roof. We just bought a new furnace for $6k, and now a new roof will be close to $8k. Everything somehow comes full circle to Kenley.

The roof was fixed when she was a live inside of me. When she died, I didn’t go in the room for a long time…had she lived, would I have noticed the issue earlier because I would have been in there with her? Then when we had it fixed, we had it painted for Alden’s arrival…and turns out it’s still not fixed…so it just feels like we’re dragging it all through the mud and somehow Kenley’s death feels so fresh because of it. I don’t know. Every time I write about her death, and the feelings I have, I feel as if it makes no sense to the outside world–and I know that some of the things don’t make sense and people don’t understand why I feel the way I do, or why I can’t do things (attend parties, showers, see new babies etc…) but that’s just how it is. My reality is just that…every single day of my life and I get to choose how I handle things that make me hurt and uncomfortable.

It’s almost June. Last year I started collecting donations for Kenley’s Care Packages in June! I can’t believe it, yet I’m kind of excited because doing things in her memory makes me feel so close to her. I miss her so incredibly much but I’m so thankful that we can help other families in her name. I’m still very surprised that no one has ever reached out to me after they received a care pack from the hospital. I guess it took me 2 years to reach out to someone about something we used at the hospital when Kenley died so I get it.

I can’t wait to get another amazon wish list going, and see what we can do in honor of our sweet girl this year!

**If you (or someone you know) are interested in knitting, or crocheting a hat, blanket, or burial gown of some sort for our donations this year please contact me or leave a comment! I’m trying to get a rough estimate of who would like to help create handmade items this year!!**