Last Christmas most of my gifts were centered around the baby. I got maternity clothes, a gift certificate to BRU… and some photo albums for all the photos I would soon be taking, given to me by my SIL. After Devin’s death the photo albums were put away, still in its packaging, untouched.

This Christmas I spent a portion of my day getting photos of my neice. I don’t do it too often – I don’t usually bring my big camera when going somewhere – but every few months I’ll take it and do a photoshoot with her. Today I got all the pics printed in duplicate – one for them, one for me. I sorted through them with a sort of pleased joy – pleased with what I had accomplished thorugh my photography, and joy at the beautiful little creature that is my neice.

Tonight, after some thought and internal debate, I pulled out those photo albums. They were put away for “later” – but then I thought, who knows when that will come? There will always be new photo albums. But right now I have photos to save and cherish. Not the ones I wanted, no… but something nonetheless. Something important.

My SIL’s mother talked to me many months ago, shortly after my neice’s birth, about how happy she was that SIL and I had maintained our relationship through all of this. She was right: I will always look at my neice and see Devin. There wasn’t much of a gap between the two events… we were pregnant together, had babies together. But only one of them is here in front of us. It is hard to look at BabyH and not see the two of them together.

In a way I am tremendously glad that she is here. I can’t explain it, but in being around BabyH, in celebrating and loving her, I feel that I am also celebrating and loving Devin. She was a baby in my arms when I desperately longed for one; she is photos in a photo album that would otherwise be empty.

I hope she grows up knowing how much her Auntie Nat loves her. I hope I will be as special to her as she is to me.

It is hard – it will always be hard. But it is good, too. I have the pictures to prove it.