Songs to Grieve to...

There are certain songs that come on and just make my heart feel a little heavier, my eyes swell, and for a second I can feel my angel near me. Songs that make me think of Sawyer. And they didn't all start that way.

Stitches by Shawn Mendez; the first time I heard this song was on me and Devs road trip to Boston. I was tired and pregnant and it played nonstop for months and I sang it to her all the time. It came on on the way to the hospital for my check up.

If I Die Young by The Band Perry; it's not her song, it's Christys. My friend that died in a car wreck at 17. But it makes me think so much of them being together in Heaven. 

Never Grow Up by Taylor Swift; it's her song. It was our song. I played it for her in my belly almost every morning from around 16 weeks on... I haven't listened to it since.

A Drop In The Ocean by Ron Pope; were playing this at our wedding but it says "Heaven doesn't seem far away anymore" and is a pretty emotional song so definitely makes me think of her.

And this one is new, but Little Do You Know by Alex & Sierra; a new song that is supposed to be about a couple fighting but talks about hurting in secret and needing more time and perfectly explains my healing process.

Music really can help heal the soul. When I just need to feel sad I like having songs for Sawyer I can turn to. Does anyone else have songs they grieve to?

Strong.

Would you be "more sad" than me? Would you never leave your house? Would you end your life? Or live in denial? 

I'm sure I'm not the only bereaved mom who constantly hears it... "You're so strong" "I could never be as strong as you're being" ...am I not crying enough? Do I not miss her with every ounce of my aching being? I promise. Even when I appear to be being strong, my body is moments from a break down at the wrong words. I promise when I'm planning my wedding and escape to start over on the East coast it's an escape from the reality that all of my plans failed so I have to tell myself it's okay and keep going. I hate questioning my every move. My every word. The anxiety that comes with grief is more than the anxiety I tackled through my previous life. My pre-Sawyer life. That girl was strong. She could've been anything.

All I can be is my day-to-day best. The glued together shell of a broken person. A person that is going to get jealous and sad and is forever changed. But a mother. And that's something no one can take away from me. And I hold on to the hope that someday when I can watch my child grow they'll know their sister and make it all feel full circle and better. But my heart breaks when I think of people that don't have that hope, or even the idea of me not having that hope. Because without it I would honestly feel like I had nothing. 

I'm strong because I still have to look forward to what's next, for me and my future husband and because that's what Sawyer would want. ❤️

One Foot In Front of the Other

I was going to go to college and get A's & B's because I did in high school. I was going to marry my boyfriend and become an art teacher and I was going to keep moving forward and not look back. College was just school. But my boyfriend was a liar. And I failed tests because I didn't study. And I found new friends, a group of friends that got it. Life is hard and plans don't work. So we forgot our problems. And for a while we didn't have a plan and we didn't want one, we had eachother and it honesty was enough. 

And then one day I drove by and 2 boys were moving in downstairs at my best friends house. "I couldn't really tell, one looked tall and goofy and the other looked kind of hot." That's what I said when Jess asked me if they were cute. We grabbed an afternoon beer (I don't think we were drinking for a reason, it was a probably a Tuesday) and headed down to say hi to the new downstairs neighbors. 

Devin and Tyler. The tall lanky guy with a mullet and the skinny cute one. He turned out to be the creepy drunk cute one that hit on all of us. But sober... Sober he was nice. And sweet. And I wanted to know him. And one night dressed in 90's clothes in a frat that wasn't his, we kissed for the first time and didn't look back. He told my friends he loved me the next day so I maybe should have been nervous moving forward but I wasn't. I had a plan again. But it didn't work. Plans don't work when you live in a soap opera I guess..

Because I cried. I cried and I didn't know what to do and I prayed to not let it be true, because I got pregnant. And even at 22 it felt so scary. And then one day it didn't. One day we found out our nugget was a girl and we had a plan and a place to live and a name for our daughter. Sawyer. I wanted a daughter named Sawyer since I was in high school. But our plans got changed. And our hearts got broken. And 4.5 months later they're still broken but we have a new plan. And rings and crafts and a wedding to plan. We have a plan to move to North Carolina and start a life together and I just don't think I can feel secure in anything anymore but I just want our plan to work. I just want a house and the beach and a minute to take a breath that doesn't shiver because there's tears behind my eyes fighting to stay in.

I just want to put one foot in front of the other again.