Four-month anniversary.....

My Darling Shahdi,

I miss you so much. You have been an important part of my life for over twenty years. I lived and breathed for you and Arman. You two were the most cherished and guarded treasures in my life, and now with you gone, I feel robbed, incomplete, lost. I don’t feel whole any more. Today is four months since your departure. I enter our house every evening calling your name, hoping you would answer. I can feel your spirit in the house even though I cannot see you in person. I can close my eyes and picture you at the different stages of your growth in different corners of the house. How I miss those times! How I miss your high-spirited, confident, active presence in your childhood house. This house is forever marked by you because sadly you also took your last breath here.

My beautiful Shahdi, how I wish none of this had happened and the last four months were just a nightmare. How I wish we still had you with us. How I wish you had moved out of your home to go to college, not to a cemetery. How I wish I had been able to help you. Please forgive me my love. I wish I could have done more. I wish I had been wiser and more capable. Even though you are no longer with us, but you are always with me.

For as long as I live, I will be a mother of two: a boy and a girl. I love you sweetheart. Rest in peace my darling child.

Visiting my beloved Shahdi for Nowruz.

Leave Shahdi in the past? No way!

Tonight our guest walked into my home office and found me scanning pictures of infant Shahdi. He looked at me and told me that it was a mistake to live in the past!

To live in the past?!!  Are you serious?!  My flesh and blood died only 3.5 months ago and already he expects me to forget her and move on with my life!!  How easy it is for others to belittle your grief!  

Life is an experience..

In the dark and lonely moments of despair and total hopelessness when we may even question our very existence, we need to separate ourselves momentarily from our immediate pending problems which may seem insurmountable, and instead reflect upon how far we have managed to travel since our life journey began with our entrance into this world.  I believe this reflection will be most crucial in refocusing our attention on 'life' rather than the alternative which will eventually find us in time even if we don't willingly seek it.

From the moment we are born, the struggle to survive against all odds (accidents, neglect, abuse, disease, violence, crime, natural disasters) begins. If we count everything that a baby needs to learn in her/his first year of life, it will be a very long list including learning to suckle, to get attention, to hold the head steady, to control the hand movements, to roll over, to sit up, to crawl, to walk, to try to talk, to hold a bottle or cup, to use a spoon/fork, to understand language, to follow commands, etc.  These are just a few of the many things a human baby has to struggle to learn in the first year of life.