Effy-Mae should be 1 year 3 months old now.
I lost her 1 year 7 months ago.
Should I be ‘over it’ yet?
When should I stop grieving?
I can feel people wondering why I’m still sad, why she’s still on my mind so much.
I don’t cry much any more – very very occasionally when something sets me off, but I’m definitely healing in that way, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss her.
In some ways it seems a lifetime since I lost her, others it doesn’t seem 5 minutes.
We have just celebrated our second Christmas without her, and it still seemed wrong. We visited her Christmas morning after opening Jacksons stocking – I can feel a tradition in the making. But she should have been there celebrating with us. Jackson should have an older sister stealing his presents and opening them behind our backs. There is a hole in our family that although softening around the edges to make it less raw is still indisputably there.

I occasionally look at Jackson and wonder if she would look like him. There are definitely similarities – they have the same mouth. I like to think they would look similar – I take comfort watching him grow up, seeing how she might have looked.

I still try and do things to remind me of her, to keep her on my mind. I draw things, make things, write things.
I love seeing her name written down – I loved her name as soon as we picked it during my pregnancy. I planned on getting everything personalised and looked forward to seeing it on her bedroom door every day.
It is even more special to me now.
But now I have to personalise different things, and make do with little reminders round the house, looking at my tattoo and typing her name on here as much as possible.
It still gives me little shivers whenever someone says her name out loud, and I’m not sure that feeling will ever go.
In conclusion I’m not sure I’ll ever be ‘ok’.
I might never stop grieving.
I will definitely never forget her.