Nearly a year

I know I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again 1000 times, but grief is a very strange creature. Just when you think you've got a handle on it, something happens to make you realise you don't.

Seeing Matthew Hill and holding him did not make me burst into tears. Yes, it made me think of Zoe, and yes, it made me miss her terribly, but I could truly enjoy Matthew for who he is, rather than who he reminded me of. But this morning...

Well, I opened my email inbox this morning, to discover a newsletter from a friend who was pregnant at the same time that I was with Zoe. Her little boy turns 1 today. Reading about all his antics and how happy they are with their 2 children.... suffice to say I found it very difficult to read. Zoe's birthday is in just over a month (a month, a week and a day, to be exact) and suddenly it all seems so unreal. I can't believe that it was nearly a year ago - it still feels like yesterday. How can this be? It seems so wrong that time has continued to pass, that the world has continued to turn. How can life go on, how can things be so normal for everyone else, when my darling child is not with us? Surely her death must have marked the world in some permanent way?

All I can say is, thank God her birthday falls during the Easter holidays - I just don't know how I would be able to face going in to work if it weren't.