Project Heal: Capture Your Grief: Memory

In an effort to ease my hurting heart this fall, I am participating in Project Heal: Capture Your Grief . It's a storytelling/photography project to honor the babies we've lost.

Day 7: Memory

For a long time, after she died, I couldn't look at this picture. This is our little tiny first apartment that I lovingly refer to as the "rat hole" (there we no rats, I promise). I'm in our little tiny kitchen, looking through the first batch of pictures that we'd taken as an engaged couple (if you look very closely, you will see the garnet engagement ring). The date is sometime between May 12-15th, 2005.
We're still decorating "the rat hole", getting to know our neighbors, and being super excited about our future together. Neither one of us has really been touched by the loss of a baby, although, I had attended the funeral of a small child once before, and Gabe's aunt had a stillbirth. So, of course, we're excited to have children, we're excited to raise children, and we're just excited about life.
In this picture, I'm flipping through pictures, debating what to make us for lunch and secretly loving my checkerboard floor in the kitchen. (black and white checks).
It's a far cry from where I would be, mere days later...our first pregnancy suddenly ended, headed to the hospital, forever changed.
 I had a hard time with this picture after she died, like I said. It's only been within the last few months that I've seen the value of keeping this picture...
It's a beautiful memory.
My time with my first daughter shouldn't only be marked by that tremendous loss.
In this picture, I am innocent. She is alive, and she is safe inside me. This picture is worth so, so much.