Dear Evalyn,

According to the calendar that hangs on the wall, it has been six months since we lost you. In my head, it only feels like yesterday.

Six months.

It is hard not to contemplate all of the things you would have already achieved had life let us keep you. You would have had your first Christmas. Your first smile. Your first laugh. Your little character would be developing and you’d now be trying solid foods. You’d already be half a year old and me and Nick would be asking ourselves how you had grown up so quickly. You would’ve settled into our little family like you had always been there . . . . .

There are reminders of you everywhere. You are in the words of every love song I hear on the radio. Your features are mirrored in your brother’s and at night time when I check on him before going to bed, I watch his face and instantly think of yours. He sleeps with your little teddy bear that you cuddled at the hospital and I never leave his room without softly running a finger over it’s cheek like I did with your own.

I think it’s fair to say that I’m a little bit lost without you. I had a plan. We were going to have so much fun together and I was going to enjoy every moment of my maternity leave with you. This wasn’t part of the plan, Evalyn. Spending my maternity leave on my own was not what we had agreed. I knew exactly the kind of person I would become with you in my life. But without you? There are times when I honestly don’t know who I am. If life is there to teach us lessons, then I’m still trying to figure out what I should be learning from the experience of losing you.

Who am I without you?

I feel that losing you split me in half. One half is completely broken. Shattered, in fact. And I’m completely unsure how to piece myself back together. That half isn’t quite sure who I am anymore because my outer image doesn’t represent who I am. I am a mother of two with only one child. Yet I spend my days being a parent to both of you as there is never a day when your name isn’t mentioned in our household. I am your mummy and I always will be. But being your mummy without you actually here is a very hard task and comes with so many ups and downs it can be exhausting.

The other half of myself is slowly moulding a ‘new’ me. I am not the person I was before we lost you. I have changed so much and, to be honest, I see that as a good thing. Ok, so I’m not as fun-loving or out-going as I once was, but I think that’s pretty much expected when someone is grieving. I don’t quite know who I am at the moment or who I want to be, but I know that there will come a day when I will look back and be proud of the person you have made me into.

You have made me feel both weak and strong all at the same time. You are my own weakness but out of grief, you have shown me a strength that I never knew I had. I sometimes wonder if I would be as strong a person if you had been here. Or perhaps this strength only comes from having to build yourself back up again from the lowest point?

You have changed us, Evalyn. It’s easy to pressume that it’s all doom and gloom, but you are changing us for the better. Although we always were a pretty good team, it’s fair to say that you’ve made mummy and daddy unbreakable. We’re so strong together because of you. Family time has become the most important thing to us and we make sure we take all of the time in the world to be with your big brother and have fun altogether at the weekends.

We talk about you all the time. Ieuan talks about you all the time. He draws you pictures and he plays in your room and will always include you in family activities. You are helping mummy and daddy in our journey to raise awareness of stillbirth and I like to think you would be so proud of everything we have achieved already and eveything we will achieve in time. . . .

Six months.

It seems like a long stretch of time, yet in a lifetime, it is nothing. And you know what? One month. Six months. One year. Ten years. Time is almost irrelevant. It will continously move forward but it won’t make us miss you any less.

You are so unbelievably loved.

And you always will be.

Mummy

xxxxxxx