Should haves.

I like to organize my posts. Link up all my little thoughts from week to week, here in my private, public corner of the internet but I've felt somewhat lost. I haven't written much lately. I frequently want to blame it on my busy life but in true transparency, I didn't want to face it. I didn't want to name the pain and we all know how super helpful it is to bottle up your grief. Stupid old Andy.

Mother's Day came and went and stung. Like all the holidays and anniversaries before it. I'm here still, without her. You think there's this predetermined amount of time that's going to help, like somewhere along the way it should soften up a bit, lose some of its bite, and it doesn't. You learn to cope better. You start to let it become a part of you, cry in your car (or shower) to internalize it a bit. I think it's what happens after you've experienced a trauma. You can turn down the volume but mute isn't an option. Maybe it's society, maybe it's me not wanting to hurt so bad, maybe it's healing. Time or a healthy mix of it all. But it's not the holidays that hurt so much anyways, it's the everyday things.

I cried over a pile of t-shirts. The charity race that I co-chair took place recently and it's one of the races I ran with Piper in my belly. I planned (and did) run it with Birdie in her stroller. Both my girls ran a race. I don't get to have that thought or experience often enough and it hurt, bad.

Its those moments. All those little moments that I should have. I should have holidays, birthdays and trips to the grocery store. I should have matching hair bows, I should have two children.

I should. I should. I should have Piper.

But I don't.

I do have Beau, and Birdie, and Karma. I do have my family, my health, my tribe. While I don't have her, I do have lots. She gifted me motherhood and a capability to really love. To appreciate Biride's eyelashes and knuckle dimples. It's not always easy and I mess up all the time. Times I complain and worry too much and drive Beau within an inch of his sanity. I could use a reminder, a good old dose of reality of what is and isn't important.

The shoulds will always outweigh the dids, but man do they matter.

Rest easy Piper.