Our First Year...

With Ana's anniversary right around the corner, flashbacks has been haunting my thoughts and dreams, Francisco too. Maybe 'haunt' is not the right word, more like a mixture of elation and profound sadness. It is not a depression or a severe horrible thing that happened to us, on the contrary. Ana is life and beauty and the best, most wonderful happening of my - of our - lives.

What strikes me is - to be in 'awe'. Love has been many things to me. I know what I thought it was when I had my first kiss, when Santa gave me everything and MORE on my Christmas wish-list (and finding out many years later, my mother made sacrifices so I could have nice things)....when I knew I wanted to be with Francisco forever.....when I knew we made a baby together....

*Love*

And then our loss, that is love too, and there are no words that can close to beauty of Ana...... Nearly a year and I am still without words, shocked by the feelings for our daughter, for life, for love. I don't think I ever knew what it was, what it meant to love....boundless, beautiful, exciting, sad, a gift. And in all my humanness, if this is love, I can not fathom what God has for us, with us, about us, in us, for us....love.

What sustains me......God loves me, profoundly, deeply, without end... God loves all. I have been made in God's image, I am human, I am a gift, I am love...... I AM

And then I wonder, how, how can I not be happy, in ecstasy of the gift, with the shear existence of being. How incredible life is, "awe", I live in awe. Something deep down tells me this is only the beginning, I have experienced barely a dust speck of ..... well, I guess it would have to be love. I can not seem to find the correct words. It is usually THAT simple, not simplistic, just beautiful, clear, a package waiting to opened an explored, Christmas everyday.

It will take my whole life to understand, to grasp what is means, what it does, how it feels, that it is a journey, isn't it?! Answers, goals, achievement, money, what is success anyway, what a cliché, but really, I can't believe it is really that simple.

Love...

It means everything.......pain, hurt, fear, loneliness. You are with me little one, I feel you, sometimes I think you are actually IN me, apart of me, no words again, can explain; but you are love, sweet Ana, you are love......

No candied hearts or bouquets of red roses, love, it is me, it is you, love is in the huge - "gift" - box of existence where it will take lifetime, sometimes referred to as a journey, to unwrap, pealing away the gentle layers of tissue-paper called experiences, one by one.... Is this what it means that the universe will unfold as it should? Tightly wound ribbon which unravels the tangles of misfortune, grief, loss...it is all love.

And I am not understanding, maybe that is it, I don't need too. I love you sweet Ana, you are a gift, you are love, you are a part of life, of your father & I, and God. You have changed me, I am the same, I love, it is beauty and more....

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