I was at Target last night picking up a card to give to Jake for our anniversary and nothing seemed appropriate. I could have gone funny and picked the one that talked about him remote-hogging and me cover-stealing; I could have gone serious with the ‘yin to my yang’ mushiness; I could have picked a million different words to tell him on this day, but none of them fit. So I went simple and picked one with two octopi holding hands with the inside saying I still love to hold his hand. He thought it was cute, but it did make us wonder if there will ever be a card that fits us.
Where is the card that says ‘Thanks for dragging me out of bed when all I wanted to do for the last year was disappear into the mattress’? Or the card that says ‘I can’t believe I just yelled at you about butter, but please know I’m not mad at you and I’m not mad at the butter, I just don’t know how to express myself’? Maybe a card that says ‘I am in a mental fog, but you make a great fog horn’?
The truth is there isn’t a card for us and I hope there is never a market for cards for people like us. Five years ago when we said our vows, I think we were both hoping to be just another ordinary couple that got to exchange ordinary cards on ordinary anniversaries; we never thought we’d be here. Some days we still feel numb about where we are in our lives. We still struggle with how we got here and how we’ll make it to tomorrow. I guess the best I can tell him is that I don’t know how we’ll make it, but I still love holding hands with him and I know that makes the journey a lot easier!
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Blessings, Tracy
You inspire me and I think of your family often.
Hi Brook,
I found your blog and just spent the last hour reading your story. I too lost two daughters, Rachel and Amryn. They were not twins… born 4 years apart, lost at ages 10 weeks and 8 weeks. They had Mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome- similar to your story in that it happened so fast…Rachel was diagnosed and only two weeks later she passed away. With Amryn, we knew right away when she was born, because she had all the same symptoms as her sister. The next 8 weeks were the hardest but also the most special weeks of our lives. I miss our daughters so, so much. It's been 2 years since we lost Amryn and 6 since we lost Rachel, and it is still so hard. I just want you to know that I'm glad I got to know your story, know your girls a bit and will remember you and them always now! Feel free to visit my blog…it was written when Amryn was with us… I stopped writing after she left us, since it was just too hard to keep putting the pain into words. I'm glad that people like you are able to voice your feelings so well so that people like me can read it, feel like you are taking the words out of our minds, and feel less alone in the process. Thank you!