It’s been a busy week for me. That’s good, because I’m keeping busy, but bad too because I’ve been a little bit stressed out. I get short on patience when I’m stressed. It’s like I’m full up just juggling everything and any random stupidity that pops up just fails my tolerance test. But I do feel good being productive, keeping lists and calendars (meticulously – it’s how I survive), getting things accomplished. And keeping my house clean.

Devin’s birthday passed pretty uneventfully for the most part. Well, other than the shuttle bus not showing up to take me to class that day. I had to walk to the main campus, and that frankly hurt my belly. I know I’m in the third trimester when my first thought upon realizing the shuttle was not coming was that I should get back in my car and go home rather than hike to class and be late anyways. (But I went. I was late. I also found out I had an exam next class, so it was a good thing I went.)

But the rest of the day passed pretty quietly, though Devin was on our minds all day. It’s unbelievable that it was 4 years ago. We’ve been married for not yet 6 years. How has life kept moving at this pace? How am I here in this place and time, feeling so far away from when I was so lost? I am so thankful that time continues moving. I am so thankful that my life includes such good things in it, that I have a good life, a happy life, even without Devin here. I am thankful that I don’t have to sit in that grief and darkness all the time anymore.

But we miss him. Two little girls – two precious little girls. But never Devin. Never my little boy. It is not a dark and stabbing grief, but it is a tender spot, an empty spot, a life we should know… and don’t. As Kate gets older I realize how very little we know about him. I felt like I knew her in the womb, and in some ways of course I did. But every month I learn something new about her, she’s growing into this amazing little vivid person right in front of me, so different from the tiny newborn I held. And I will never know that with Devin. I will never know if he would have been my wild child, if he would have loved water, if he would have been loud and boyish. I wish I knew how to fill in that memory but it’s just an empty line extending through the rest of my life.

On my to-do list this week: finally stop procrastinating and order Devin’s gravestone. No his grave still doesn’t have one. It was one of those situations where you get caught up on a detail – Den and I couldn’t agree on exactly what sentiment to put on it – and instead of just picking something we just put it off. We never go to the cemetery so it wasn’t something big and pressing, and there just became a point where the thought of pulling out his papers to look up the info again was too overwhelming. I meant to do it. I just… didn’t. Yesterday I pulled down his paperwork to get the info, then made calls to a few local companies. Tomorrow (hopefully) I’m going in to place the order. It will be such a relief to get it done. He deserves something there. I need something there.

I stopped in our front yard, watching critically as his tree straightened again after losing the weight of snow that was on it. I wanted to march over and say to it, Devin’s tree, thank you for still being alive. I realize you are a replacement, and so it doesn’t mean quite as much to me as if the original plant had survived 4 years. Nevertheless I am just very relieved and grateful that you are still here and I don’t have to go through replacing you again. I am really glad to see you’ve made it almost a year in good shape. But then I realized I’d be talking to a tree, so I just said it in my head instead.

It took me a while to put two and two together about why I’ve been feeling anxious this week (duh), but I’ve been increasingly anxious about this pregnancy. Not a lot, nothing scary, but just a lot more worried thoughts running through my head lately. I’m doing kick counts now and I fret when her movements are a little slower. (Even though I know she has some slower days and some crazy days… she goes back and forth). All the movement I’ve been feeling is really making me feel much more connected to this baby, which is great… except the more connected I feel the more worried I get that something will go wrong. Yes Kate was healthy and her pregnancy was routine. But I think a part of me is feeling like I’m pushing my luck doing this again, like I’m wondering if I really can have two normal pregnancies. I’m getting closer to the gestation that I lost Devin, and of course this week was his birthday. I didn’t even really think about how that is affecting my thought processes, but it makes sense that with all the memories floating to the surface I’m getting a bit sidetracked with the things that could go wrong. It’s hard to trust that everything will be fine when you’ve already been a statistic once. Regardless I try to think positively and plan for the best.