Four years on, that clear storage tote still sits within the stack of holiday bins, seasonal clothes, and other basement odds and ends. I was digging for the Halloween decorations the other day, and came face to face with it. Without thinking, I opened it up, as I always seem to do, and simply stared at the contents. Pink. Overwhelmingly pink and precious. The last remainder of the things Lucy never had the chance to use; stuff that, for one reason or another haven’t been given away. Sheets, bath towels, little leg warmers, bibs, a sippy cup… all pure girly babyness. Ordinary items, most washed one time in anticipation for a baby daughter that couldn’t come home; ordinary items that tell the story my heart knows so well.

I can’t say now whether or not I’ll ever depart with that miscellany-laden bin. It’s always the same: I see it, I open it, I stare, I sigh, I close it again, I shut my eyes briefly, I inhale and exhale, I put it back, I walk away, I feel my mood shift. Few things now make me feel again that emptiness that used to threaten to swallow me up even just a year ago. In that emptiness, everything else briefly fades, and I feel as if I’m transported to some ethereal place, like how I imagine the misty, desolate moors to be in a Bronte novel. How very gothic, how very grey. And strangely, how very comforting. Yes, just a storage bin can do that.

At times, the simplest things stop me in the middle of what I’m doing, and as if I’m merely an observer of myself, I take note of the fact that this woman’s infant daughter died… and I remember all over again the woman I’m referring to is… me. Not to say that I’m in a state of forgetting Lucy- nothing could be further from the truth. I suppose what I mean is just that things have changed and I have evolved since her death. Somehow, through the mist and fog of my grief out on the figurative moors, I kept living. It didn’t end me. In the early days I wished it would. In spite of myself, I have thrived. I’ve learned how to honor my story, and in doing so, have managed to help a few other women like me along the way who were never given the space to honor their stories or lost little ones. I am proud of that, and I’d like to think Lucy would be too.

I know I’ll spend a lifetime healing from the loss of Lucy; it isn’t something one just “gets over”. Just because life is different and mostly good years down the road, it doesn’t mean that there won’t be bumps and rough patches, but it does mean that we’re resilient creatures and we can overcome. We can carry our stories and share them; we can use the pain to do some good.

Anyhow, I suppose this is my attempt at sharing some hope and encouragement to anyone stumbling across this post, especially if this whole grief journey is fresh for you. It doesn’t go away, and it doesn’t necessarily hurt any less, but oh my how it evolves. You’ll find yourself again, figure out how to sit with grief and joy simultaneously… you’ll keep living. I can’t even begin to write all the ways in which I have changed since the trauma of losing baby Lucy, but for better or worse, I’ve learned to own it all without shame. Love is an incredible thing, and a love like this cannot fade. Somehow that makes things okay, eventually.