1 | Welcome to 2009. What have you left behind in the year just past? What do you hope to find in the year to come?

I left behind most of my hope, my dreams, my sense of safety and sanity. I hope to re-discover most of it – except a sense of safety. I know that is gone forever.

2 | We’ve just come through the season in which our culture touts cheer and peace and family togetherness rather relentlessly. How did your child’s death impact your experience of the “holiday” season, personally or culturally?

It didn’t feel like Christmas to me. It all felt like… not a sham so much as a dream-like version of Christmas. It wasn’t real. I didn’t really feel it in my heart. We went about the steps, everyone else seemed to participate, but I was somewhere else.

3 | If you celebrate in any way through December, are there ways you include or acknowledge your lost baby/babies?

Many. I went to a Candlelight vigil in December at the Angel of Hope statue. I bought him a gift (for me). I hung an ornament with his name and the year on our tree. Our christmas cards (which we forgot to send, of course) had his name on it. Everything I did for Christmas was a way for me to celebrate my baby.

4 | Through the year are there any holidays, seasons, or parts of what were once cherished rituals that have changed for you because of your child’s death?

Christmas Morning. It used to hold such hope and promise, such excitement. No matter where I was, Canada or here in the US, I always insisted on celebrating the morning with great joy. This year… I slept in. It would have been for him. But he is gone, so what was the point? Nothing.

5 | Do you do anything to remember your baby/babies’ birth and/or death day? Or will you?

I still have no idea what I want to do on his birthday. I know I want to do something… I’m just not sure what.

6 | Is there anything about the winter season (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere right now) that lifts your spirits? Is there anything that especially brings them down?

The snow. I love the snow. Nothing particularly that brings me down.

7 | During your hardest times, how have you found your way forward?

By allowing myself to grieve. I write, I cry, I speak… I feel so deeply, so completely, that I fear I must break underneath it all. But it’s the only way out, the only way through. I take it all in, and let it seep out.