Project Heal Capture Your Grief: Normalizing Grief

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



Day 12: Normalizing Grief 

It's been nearly 10 and a half years since I lost my first daughter, and sometimes, the quiet mornings send me into a panic attack. I get up earlier than anyone else in the house, and early mornings are the perfect time to read my Bible, to think, and to over-think.
I wonder sometimes, if she'd be an early bird and get up with the sun, and sit with me while I read. I wonder if she'd appreciate the sunrise, or if she'd just want to sleep and sleep, like her Dad and her little sister. Those times are OK.
And then there are times when absolute fear just takes over.
What if something happens to Ella?
What if I have another baby and it dies, too?
And then I relive the morning of May 17, 2005...and then the panic attack is inevitable.
It's been nearly 10 and a half years. I still have panic attacks. I still cry in the early morning, pre-sun rise, pre-everyday-housework hours. I am not crazy. I just miss her.