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Day 6: Books

After Zoey’s diagnosis, I came across the song “I Will Carry You”.  It led me to the book by the same name.  I felt connected to the author as we shared similar journeys.  She also knew her child would have a shortened life expectancy.  She also hoped the doctors were wrong.  She also chose to carry her child despite the diagnosis.  She also made memories with her unborn child.  I was not alone.  Someone else took their unborn child to Disney World.  Read to her.  Told her stories.  I wasn’t crazy after all.

I just downloaded “Grieving Parents: Surviving Loss as a Couple”.  I’m not far in, but it’s already helped me realize a few things.  One being that the suspicion my memory and mind are not functioning properly is completely valid.  I’m forgetful, cloudy,  and disjointed at times.  This is normal. Or at least my new normal.  I also see that Joe and I grieve differently.  I knew this but I need to work on just accepting it.  We’re in this together but may deal with it very differently.  I need to let him find his way– not force him into mine.  We need to be accepting of the other’s path.

The most important books, though, are the one ones we read to Zoey while I was pregnant and after she was born.  That was our time together–just the three of us (and sometimes a cat).  Almost every night Joe and I would sit on the couch, his hand on my belly, and we’d read to Zoey.  We asked people to send us books- and they did.  Everything from cute stories about the day the crayons quit to stories about a special little lamb to original stories people wrote for her.  We laughed with some.  We marveled at how some made it to publication.  And we cried at more than a few.

We read “God Gave Us You” to Zoey before she arrived, at the hospital and once she was home.  I have her tiny footprints inked inside the cover.  The last book we read to her was “Wherever You Are My Love Will Find You”. As I said at her memorial service, the last line is “you are my angel, my darling my star…and my love will find you wherever you are”.  Zoey is my angel.  And I continue to pray that my love is finding her now.