Vacation

We just spent a week in Door County with my family.

A tradition going back to my dad as a kid.

It was fun, exhausting and really hard.

Not the vacationing with a toddler hard, though that was a damn marathon. No. It was vacationing without a baby hard. It was reminders that my family traditions will never be what or with who they were supposed to be.

It was re-working room arrangements for the kids knowing we didn't need to consider where Spencer would sleep.

It was deciding to skip the Ornament store, at the last minute because we weren't ready to face that tradition alone.

It was continuing traditions with Kenzie while having a bit of my heart break at the reality of her little brother never participating.

These are the times I get angry at what should have been, at what was taken from me, from my family. Why everyone else gets to have beautiful, healthy babies and we already faced and won a battle only to lose a war.

I wrote this yesterday, while Kenzie slept in my arms for her nap. Not something she ever does. But maybe she realized mama needed her. To listen to her calm, quiet breathing. To feel her tiny hand curled on my chest. To have her snuggle close to me and not let me go.

Maybe she knows how much I miss the daily actions I should be doing with her brother and decided to need me.

I am not sure family traditions will ever not feel off-or incomplete. But I refuse to let the loss stop us from living.

Spencer deserved everything we could have given him X 1000. So, we have to keep going, keep giving, keep living. Because Spencer can't be here to do it with us, we owe it to him to do it for him.

We owe it to him to live- but damn if it isn't hard.