"Innocence and Experience"

I've written before - although I can't remember if it was on here or in the personal diary I kept for 3 months before starting this - about "Innocence and Experience", a series of poems by William Blake that Michael and his mum talk about a lot. In the days after Kat died I felt that the hope we/I had held for her had been Innocence; her death was Experience.

The first anniversary is upon us now. I've been so focused for almost a year now on the 20th November being Kat's Day that it was only last night I stopped to think that there's another anniversary. The 19th is the day we found out our girl had passed away.

I haven't really done a great deal of "this time last year"... Of course there has been some of that, I think it's only natural in the first year of grieving. I remembered the date that we found out I was pregnant with her, for example. And being pregnant there has also been an element of "at this stage of pregnancy with Kat..." but again, only really at key times, such as 15 weeks (when I'd been 'sick'), 18 weeks (first ultrasound that showed any problems) and 25 weeks. All in all though my grief has very much been in the present and I haven't spent all that much time looking back. Now though it's the anniversary and so I look back.

The 20th is Kat's Day. It's the day we will consciously involve the kids in spending time together as a family in memory of Kat. We will buy her a rose plant and some flowers to put in a new vase that is just for her flowers when we happen to buy them throughout the year. It was the day we got to see and hold our girl.

The 19th marks the worst moment of my life. Of course there was a whole lot of pain still to come; if I could measure pain as such, probably the moment Kat was laid on my chest stands out as the most raw, animalistic moment. But hearing that there was "no heartbeat... I'm sorry to tell you that your baby has passed away" was... the moment. It was the moment my soul was ripped apart and my own heart seemed to stop for a moment and I stood staring down a black hole in which the rest of my life would be lived as a person who knew the unimaginable pain of outliving a child.

Today is the 18th. And on the 18th I was still Innocent. I thought our girl was still alive and that the next day we were going away to Newcastle for our appointment to see her heart beating on the ultrasound. Most of all? I was looking forward to having a couple of days alone with Michael.