It’s unbelievable our Blake is actually gone. It’s still hard to believe SMA came into our lives and took my innocent baby girl. It’s hard to believe this happened to my family. But it did; it happened to us.

It happened to me.

I used to read a lot of tragic stories and think to myself, “Oh, how awful.”  People have said to me, both before and after Blake’s death, “It’s a parent’s worst nightmare.” I feel like my life has become one of these stories you read about.  Now, we’re the story.  We’re the nightmare. Those tragic stories you read?  That is our life. Blake is the baby who is gone way too soon. It’s not someone else’s baby.  It’s not a random story, or the child of a friend of a friend; it’s my child. Mine.  

I keep trying to figure out what to say to people when they ask how things are. Nothing feels right because nothing IS right in my world. It still feels like this all happened to someone else.

How do you tell someone you can still hear your child cry in the other room when they’ve been gone for nearly two months?

I thought (or probably hoped), between Kenley’s broken leg and going back to work, these events would serve as distractions from all of the grief of losing Blake. Instead, it’s been mostly the opposite. These events have forced me to look inward, feeling even more deeply what my “normal life” looks like without my little sunshine. Living this life without her here is worse than I ever imagined it would be.

A lot of people told me months ago that grief is hard work.  Grief work is the hardest work I have ever done and I absolutely hate it. Grief work is the type of work that includes forcing yourself out of bed.  Every single step of the day is grief work.

We’re doing it though. Jeff and I both do the work for Kenley, for Blake and for each other. We promised Blake we wouldn’t let SMA take us. And we won’t.