525600

She still counts the minutes that I am not here... -Andrew McMahon

Three is a magic number, it doesn't feel magical today even though I keep looking up at the sky, over my shoulder, and into mirrors hoping that heaven will break a rule and let me see my daughter one more time. Three years, how could that be? It was like yesterday that it was her sitting here at this computer playing a marathon game of Literati eating a bowl of nuts and a pile of grapes. She would leave the bowl and the stems for me to pick up and I would act like I was pissed but I really wouldn't be. It wasn't that long ago that we were at a bookstore looking for something she had not read yet, at Target looking for the perfect T to wear to a concert or in Berkeley at Sweet Dreams wandering around touching everything. Now here I am at this computer alone and if feels like a million years since I've heard her voice or smelled her skin.

Today is the day I am allowed to have a full blown pity party. Today I get to count years, months, minutes...525600

There are a few red tulips up in the garden, stragglers, and the lilac so much of it I love the way it smells, it is a female smell; warm, like home. The Trees all have their clothes back on and the apple blossoms arrived just as the pear blossoms blew away. The cherry tree is gone, Stevie's tree, the one that did not make cherries until the year she died, the one I bought her as a present after radiation therapy. She wanted to be able to see cherry blossoms from her window.

I should plant a garden but I can't seem to do it, to put myself out there, invest in any more hope. I will, I always do and since Stevie left it has been mostly half hearted, a habit, an act of caring when I am still so mad at God. My little vegan isn't here to graze my veggie beds stealing the fattest tomato's the second they became ripe. She refused to get her hands dirty but you never knew a child who loved produce as much as she did.

The seasons change and I watch it all happen. Time moves the way it will, it does not stop, it will not turn back. I am not like time...I am forced to move with it but I dare it to stop me from remembering. If I were smarter I would find a way to move backwards through it and find the exact moment I could have done one thing different and saved her life.

Today is a day for tears...

I can't seem to bring her back and I tell myself it must be because she is so happy where she is, that she has long since forgotten this little house and these people she shared a short life with. In some other place she is reunited with people she has known before time who missed her even more than I ever could (not sure how that is possible) and they surround her with the most complete kind of love, a bigger love than I can't remember but I must have known.
My girl.

I survive, I am here, and she is somewhere...too far away.

This is fucked. I know ugly words make me look ugly, that is what I tell the kids but this thing I feel is kinda ugly and the word fits, there isn't another in this language I know.

Today I will take Noah to the orthodontist and let her torture his poor little mouth so that one day he will have a Hollywood smile to go with his black guitar and his beautiful voice. Then I will go to the cemetery and sleep on my cowboy blanket over the place my daughters body is buried. I will talk, sing, cry and wait for magic to happen. Three is a magic number.

Orion makes his way across the sky

Oh and here comes spring...The lilac is in full bloom and it's scent fills the yard, the lone pink tulip is here and brought two little sisters so now there are three. I am not sure why but it made me cry. The daffs and red tulips have finished and the roses are beginning. All the trees have leaves and the fig has tight little baby buds just waiting to get enough sun to turn into grown-ups.

My yard is it's own little universe. When we first moved here I tended it like I was it's mother and it needed me. I planted dreams, ideas, and nurtured growth. It was a simple yard with low maintenance shrubbery, a couple rose bushes and a big lawn. Over the years it has seen a pond (which we covered when Noah was born) A huge veggie garden (Which is now a small garden bed) new trees (because I love fruit trees not because we actually have room for them) Two small buildings (garden sheds converted into an office and a studio) and a little hot tub (which turned into a very big hot tub). The shrubs are long gone, the lawn is much smaller, the trees are much bigger and I just put up a little awning to keep the afternoon sun from beating us to death in the summer.

Steve tells everyone I am Sarah Winchester because I have taken our small yard in suburbia and turned it upside down every spring. For me life is about moving, changing, growing, evolving. We now have gardeners who mow the lawn and kill the weeds, and the yard no longer requires a mother it knows how to take care of itself. It has become my invention, a history of our life here.

Spring is a time of new beginings, when everything wakes up and blooms, buds, and lives. It is a bittersweet time for me because it now marks the end of my daughters life here but maybe somewhere it marks a different kind of beginning something so awesome and breathtaking even my imagination can not conceive of it.

For those of you who have asked for a baby update I guess this is as good a time as any to report that there isn't much news. I do have a family that has contacted me regarding embryo adoption. They have (adorable)twin girls that resulted from IVF and there are seven embryos remaining. I am just waiting to hear from them in regards to a final decision. They have many parents to choose from and they need to make a choice based on what they feel is best for their family. They would like an open adoption so that the children can know each other. I think it's a great idea. This process is about building families, and there are so many wonderful ways to do that.

To be honest I had just about given up. Steve and I had a melt down while we were going through the clinics donation program and I started feeling like maybe I was pushing something to happen that wasn't meant to happen, that maybe the universe was telling me to just let it go. It has always been my opinion that if you have to use force it is a sign to just be still.

So I stopped. I cancelled appointments and I decided to be still. I cried, I contemplated, I questioned, I meditated, and I made a plan to not have a plan. Two days later I got an email from two families who were interested in us.

The other family is wonderful and all the embryos they have are girls (extra terrific) all four embryos have been genetically tested and they are preparing for the birth of thier son. It feels like they have a very long list to choose from and although I am on that list it still feels like a long shot.

To be honest it was a blessing just to be chosen at at all. There are so many families waiting and so few donors, those emails made me feel like the universe does have it's own plan. I am not sure where all this will lead but I am full of hope and I am sure it will take me where I need to be.

For right now this moment is about watching the stars in the night sky, following Orion as he makes his way to a place where I can no longer see him, watching the moon through her phases, waiting for the morning glory to climb the fence, listening to the new birds sing the same songs they always have.

This life of mine, of all of ours is filled with such magic and wonder, it is bigger than standing in line at Starbucks, getting to work on time, trying to decide what to make for dinner. It has a rhythm, promises, and heartbreak. There are beginnings and endings and we live in between them. There is a time embrace life, to fight for it, to let it go and a time to just be still and experience it happening all around us.

Stevie, I am still here buttercup, still waiting and listening, still your mom, still your buddy, still in love with what ever it is you have become. Thank you for being my girl, my heart, my spring.