A Love Letter To A Dead Girl

Hi.

10 years is a long time. I wish you could know that. I wish you too could feel the bittersweet weight of 10 very full years of memories and love and growth and sadness and excitement and anger and hope and learning and frustration and haircuts and getting dirty and cleaning up and getting dirty again and delicious meals and snow forts and blanket forts and flying and birthday presents and creativity and skinned knees and stubbornness and laughter and ... and ... ... and. And there is so much here. There is everything here. Everything but you.

I think you would have enjoyed your first decade on this earth.

I know we would have enjoyed your first decade on this earth.

Some people talk about moving on as if I can just leave The Sad behind and go towards The Happy - but I feel that it's not about moving away from The Sad, it's about moving on with it. Under it. In it. It's waking up each day knowing that loss is always here because you're not.

Does this mean I think of you every day? I have to be honest - I don't. Not anymore, at least. But 10 years ago, I'm not sure I believed that to be possible. Maybe theoretically, intellectually - in that part of my soul that somehow knows some things to most likely be true even if I can't find any other reason to believe them. But it was too raw and too real, too deep and too personal, too confusing and too abrupt, to feel like it would ever be anything other than all-present and all-consuming.

As the time has gone by, I've found myself more interested in the immediate, bloody, candid pictures of your dead body than the posed, touched up, decolorized, pretty pictures that were taken later that night or the dressed up, decaying pictures taken the next morning. You were so close to life in the first pictures - so frustratingly close. Roughly 2 days before this picture, your heart was beating and your feet were kicking. And then there you were, lifeless in our arms.

So close. So very far.

I can still hear the nothingness - the anticlimactic, antiseptic, procedural atmosphere of your birth. The casual, contemplative mutterings of the doctor as he and the nurse checked for the cause of death, only to find none. No explanation. No happy busywork from the nurse. No sighs of relief and smiles of joy from us. Just the silence - and it continues today.

I can still feel the sobs shaking our bodies as we said goodbye to yours - letting them wheel you out the door like we were giving up on you. Abandoning you. Forgetting you. I promise that we wanted to stay there with you forever, hoping that maybe the next time we looked over, you'd be moving. Maybe the next time we woke up, it'd be to your cries. Maybe the next time we felt your skin, it'd be warm and soft.

As I write this, I keep crying because I wish I could kneel down in front of you - like I sometimes do with your sisters and brother - and look into your eyes and speak directly to you instead of having to process all of this through some sort of convoluted written attempt at understanding my feelings.

And as I write this, I wish there was more to say. I wish we had things to talk about, laugh about, learn about. Instead I'm just left here wondering how it's possible for me to love so fiercely somebody I've never even met.

I love you.

Dad

A Surprise and a Trip to Ada Hayden

 A Grandma and Olivia Surprise Visit

Mom called and wanted to bring Liv for a visit Wed, Aug 10- Fri, Aug 13. I didn't tell the kids but managed to get school done before they arrived on Wed, so we just did some catch up on the weekend. They had a fantastic time and were truly surprised when they arrived! We went to the pool, did a library escape activity, relaxed at home, went to breakfast, and went to our homeschool park meetup. 

We played sleeping queens at the library while waiting our turn for an escape room

The kids played restaurant all the time!

Movie night

Zingo

Anthill game

Gnomes at Night

Grandma took us to breakfast at The Cafe

A cat wiki stick

Homeschool park date at Brookside Park

 

Corn!

Ada Hayden

We went for a walk around the prairie area and the lake at Ada Hayden on a Saturday morning. It started out cool but heated up fast when the sun came out! I had fun looking for birds and butterflies! We also looked for other insects. The kids were a little upset about how far we walked but they made it. 

 

First Day of School 2022-2023

 August 1, 2022

 Riley is in 5th, August is in 2nd, and Nora is in Kindergarten.

This year we are covering medieval times in history. For science we are  covering space first then animal classification and biomes. It should be a fun year!

August can't resist making silly faces!

I made cinnamon bread for the first day of school!

I am not sure what planet this is but it's happy!

Oreo moon phases

Nora's rainbow and cats

For art they made a painting based on a story, Nora's was The Mitten

Flowers made by Nora

Riley's painting based on a story was, Misty of Chincoteague

Last year they enjoyed starting out the year with the book, How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World, and then making an apple pie. This year we made a dutch apple pie with the crumbly top! It turned out pretty well and we had fun.

Nora follows me around the kitchen any chance she gets.

Nora spilled cinnamon on her toes but would only let me call her cinnamon toes for the day

 

First Field Trip

The library was still hosting their summer events so we went to them on Tuesdays. This is the cold blooded redhead,  she travels with her reptiles and teaches about them. Riley was selected to feed the monitor lizard. 

 

The next week they had a magic show and August has been trying to think of great magic tricks ever since. His show was also a lot of fun.

Then we visited grandma and grandpa. We had a great time swimming in the pool and when the power went out papa grilled the corn. The kids thought the corn was great! We then went to Maquoketa to see the play Moana Jr. Ainsley and Piper were both in it.  The kids did a great job with it and it was a lot of fun!