"Turn your faces to the Sun"-Ethan and Dylan's 7th

This year has been different. A good different. I still felt it coming, still had to work hard to control my mind and not let myself replay the day over and over again in my head but it was easier. I never had a breakdown where I just couldn't gain control. When I thought of them it wasn't the familiar sense of heartbreak/devastation more a sense of calm and assurance that it will all work out. I think I am healing. Slowly, very slowly, we are healing. I made sure that I had no other committments and decided that my goal for the day was to maintain my peace. They would've been seven this year, is that even possible? We decided to have the kids go to school and keep everything as routine as possible, but I did send Hunter and Avery cupcakes in their lunches and told them it was to celebrate Ethan and Dylan's birthday's. I took Emma and we went shopping and then went and got lunch to bring home. Not to stay busy to avoid the emotion but to not sit around and allow the darkness to try to creep in. I was feeling calm until noon and the hour of their birth as I looked down at the clock in the van I could almost feel the heaviness try to wash over me. Quietly tears started to fall and I said out loud to myself, "Leave me alone" not to saying it to anyone really just to the feelings that were trying to pull me down. I started saying in my mind, "you can not have my peace" slowly over and over almost as if I was battling myself for control over how I was going to handle the day. The feelings started to ease, not lift completely but ease to where I could still feel my calm. I pulled into the garage and grabbed Emma up in my arms, she heals me. We went in and ate our lunch on the couch with her on my lap. Deke came home and like always everything became even more calm and my sense of "being okay" became even more resolved. The rest of the day was calm with lots of hugs from the kids without asking just being given. I feel so encouraged. I thought about them all day of course, missed them and longed to kiss them but in a healthy way that was in a good perspective. It has taken me seven years to have a birthday day like this. Always and for the rest of my life I realize that almost all days will be wonderful and I will have this peace but there will also be those moments that the longing for a moment is hard to bear. It will always be this way since they are my babies and that's how mom's feel about their children. I had been thinking about how positive and healing their birthday was since it was actually on Feb. 2nd and wanted to wait and write about it when I felt I could do it in an uplifting way. Even as I write about it now my peace is here. Today my sister sent me a card with a quote: "Be like the flower, turn you faces to the Sun"-Kahlil Gibran. Inside she shared a special experience with me that she has never shared, one that touched me. In it she told Deke and I that in our darkest moment which of course was losing our sons that we had chosen to turn to the Sun and turn away from the darkness. I remembered back to the darkest point of my life when I realized that a part of me wanted to just go to the darkness and just lay in it and let it have me because I thought I had nothing left. I just didn't care I was beyond any hurting that I could have imagined. I felt so numb. I also remember when I then made the choice that that is not what I wanted for my life, my husband, my children, I would try. I feel like I chose right then to turn to the light and for a very long time it was so bright and uncomfortable that I almost desired to be in the dark again. This was harder, it took effort to try to walk towards it and it felt as if my slow steps towards it only continued to cause me burns. It hurt, it hurt a lot, maybe it wasn't what I wanted but I had made the decision and had to keep trying. Then slowly my eyes began to adjust to this new light and I could see better more clearly as I continued forward. I became tougher and things that had once caused me burns tried to penetrate but ended up on the surface unable to cause the same damage. I am still trying, I am still miles from where I hope to be in acceptance and understanding of this huge thing that has been asked of us but I for the first time in a long time can see growth and progress and I am grateful. Maybe someday I will be able to take that light and have the growth to see and understand in a way that I still don't yet. Since I have a feeling that if I continue to follow it, it will always be bright enough. I will just keep trying, for them. I love you Ethan and Dylan, Happy Birthday. Love Mommy.