27 months

We've been trying some new things (dyed pasta shapes above). Marlo is always up for anything.

Some things she's said recently:

"Daddy, do you have sixty-nine dollars?"

At Target: "Mommy, can you get something to cheer me up?"

After a dramatic fake cry, and getting herself a tissue to blow her nose: "I'm okay, Mommy."

After reading the (unusual) nursery rhyme about the lion and the unicorn fighting for the crown: "They need to share".

Progress

A photographer from the Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep organization took photos of Griffin and we just received a CD of the images the other day. I am so grateful for those photos, and for the photographer who donated her time and talent so that we could have them.

The photo of Marlo above was taken by Mark's sister Amy at his funeral. It's so dreamlike, so like that day. My head swims in the memory sometimes, knowing it's real but hardly able to believe it to be true.

I have come close to posting other pictures, but they're just too personal. Too much to see if one is not prepared, I would think, although I can't get enough of them.



My aunt Sharon came by when she was in town a couple weeks ago. We had a really good conversation. Aunt Sharon is honest, but not brutally so. I mean she never filters her feelings, but it's of no consequence because what she says is the truth and comes with great wisdom. I really appreciate that about her.

Her mother passed away a year ago. She was telling me how hard it was. How she knew that her mother was better off because she was no longer suffering, that it was her time, but that it's so hard to let go. I've heard that said so many times, but just hearing it from Aunt Sharon, it just really struck me.

Why is it so hard? Why is it so hard to let go, even though you know they're at peace, even though you'll be together again for eternity?

Because we love each other so much.

That may be the greatest realization of my life.

The pain of losing Griffin, the great gaping hole in me...it is there because I love him so much. It sounds so simple, but sometimes grief just focuses on the hurt and the loss, not the reason for its magnitude. And lately when that sadness hits me hard, I actually can stop and concentrate on why it hurts: because I love him so much. Then I take that love like gauze and I pack into the wound. It's still there, but at that moment, it stings a little less.

Balboa park

I forgot how beautiful it was. We didn't even go into any of the museums...next time.

Marlo was looking at the koi and got her head stuck (very briefly, but enough to freak us both out) in the cement fence shown in the photo below:

I see people taking their quinceniera photos all the time, at least one every weekend in the park by our house. The dresses are just getting brighter and brighter. I saw a gorgeous turquoise one recently.
The one above...the photo does not do justice. It was like a green highliter. And all the guys in the party had ties and scarves to match.

Until next year

Well my white-trash pastime has come to an end. We went to the fair five out of the nineteen days that it was here. I didn't try the fried macaroni and cheese on a stick. Not that I didn't want to, it's just that the portion was ridiculously small and so not worth the price.

So these are the last of the photos you'll have to see.

I don't know what this was about. They were just there, behind a rope like an exhibit. But they were pretty cute:

I saw the hotness that is Charo, don't be jealous:

Marlo kept saying, "Drive, Mommy, drive!"

Beach days

We don't go nearly enough.


Mark is very serious about building sandcastles. Who knew.

A rare nap

There's a fifty-fifty chance of her taking one these days.

Yes, that baby doll is wearing a diaper.

Happy Fourth

Wishes...

Sometimes I let Marlo take a bag of pennies down to the fountain and have fun tossing them in.

I have wishes of my own. We planned this pregnancy. I was going to waddle around the fair this summer. I was going to deliver in October. I was determined to have all my Christmas decorations up by December in spite of having a toddler and a newborn.

But thinking doesn't make it so. And plans are just plans. They're not guarantees.

I know I can't change things. I know that there was nothing I could have done to make Griffin well. But that's not enough to stop me from wishing I could have.