I am home with the flu, a gift from my sweet boy and his bunk mates at camp. He is recovered and doing well and is being a love and getting me ice water, giving me head rubs, and teaching me camp songs.

This is a strange summer...I can't put my finger on it, maybe it is the unusual weather, a quiet house, or business that requires my attention. It just doesn't feel like a real summer yet.

I have been in a bummed out crappy mood. I feel restless, sad, a little frustrated, and disconnected. Because this is a blog about grieving and surviving I think it is OK to talk about the long term fall out. For me there was the acute period of absolute pain. There were whole days when I didn't even want to breath, everything hurt, those days quickly turned into days that were doing, doing, doing. If I kept myself busy I didn't have time to think, remember, or fall apart. I felt like I was healing but I would crash and burn, then get busy again.

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months and now it has been two years. For most people that seems plenty of time to move on and leave behind the crying days. I think what people don't understand is that there is no moving on. The moment I kissed my daughter for the last time, before they zipped up that ugly bag and took her body away was the last moment I was me.

I didn't die or disappear, my body looks the same, my life looks similar but everything has changed. This life I live is a broken version of the life I had before. I wobble around in it. Noah still needs a lunch packed, Aly still wants to argue about how she understands life much better than I do. Steve still wants me to be the person he met 25 years ago. The bills need to be paid, groceries purchased, a house cleaned, dentists to see, mammograms, school supplies to buy...

Everything still moves and turns but without the person I love most. I am learning to live this way, it isn't a choice really but I have not learned to live this way with joy, hope, and happiness.

I know several women who have lost children. One woman I know went to all the right therapists, did all the right things, and has chosen to celebrate her daughters life rather than focus on her death. She finds comfort in talking to her, talking about her and wrapping herself in her husbands love, and the love of her children and grandchildren. She is an inspiration.

Most women who lose a child, who are of child bearing age become pregnant within a year. It is easy to understand why, and I know if this option where available to me it would have helped me in a big way. I am very angry that it is not. I know that the act of bringing a life into the world would restore hope and belief.

There are women who can not bear this loss and I understand that. There is no one on this planet that will argue that the loss of a child is the most painful thing a woman will ever have to endure. I know women who have taken there lives and women who still have bodies that live but they don't live in them. This scares me.

Many women put their energy into a cause, they raise money, write books, start foundations. This cause is not unlike giving birth to another child.

There is a spectrum to this like most things I'm not sure it is a very big one but we all fit somewhere on it, I'm not sure where I fit yet, I'm all over the place.

I fear being stuck in a dark place but I know I am not able to celebrate my daughters life. Noah wraps himself around me and he saves me but everything else feels like an enormous rocking sea. I am tired of being busy just to be busy. I desire to find happiness, I would love to have more children.

I know I can live with this pain, missing my girl, and not understanding. I am doing it. I think I can do more than what I am doing. I know I still have a well of strength I have not accessed yet. I have an idea of what I want my new life to look like but I just don't know how to navigate this ocean and make my way to that shore.

I need a soft spot to land, a life that is easy, I need good weather, music, time to heal and a beautiful place to do it. I need to escape this place where the old me use to live. I want a vacation from stress, drama, and work. I want to sit under a big tree with Noah and read stories. I want to eat outside, walk on the beach, float in water, I want to write long letters by candle light, I want to watch the sky turn pink wrapped in a blanket on the top of hill. I want to make art for myself, sing in the kitchen and go barefoot everyday.

I want a real summer that lasts and lasts and lasts.