I find myself feeling less and less like I fit in to the mainstream world. After my daughter died, my reality capsized. I now look at life through a dark set of glasses. It’s not rosy. It’s not happy. It’s not balanced.

A new year without my daughter feels incomprehensible. There is nothing to be excited about, there is no positive outlook. This calendar change is bleak and unwelcoming. There is no room among the sadness to make way for new and better ideas, attitudes and changes.

Our daughter is dead and we all we hear is “merry Christmas” or “enjoy the holidays” or “the new year will be better”. ‘Tis the season to be jolly does not compute. Merry and bright are the opposite descriptions of how we really feel. Holly, jolly, fa, la, la, la, la. Blah.

The local community has showered us with ongoing support. Here's a story of how they continue to honor our daughter and her life.

Doing things after your child dies is liking eating a meal that has no flavor.

November the twentieth was our daughter’s tenth birthday. But she wasn’t here to celebrate it. We wanted to do something to remember her and honor her.

In the beginning, after your child has died, you often hear or read about the “firsts”; occasions or events that occur for the first time since your child’s death. We have now come to a year and a few months later and are going through the same events for the second time. The second time is agony.

How do can we possibly give thanks when our child has died?

November is Pulmonary Hypertension Awareness Month.

For a long time you think that there is no one else on earth that could feel like you do and that there is no one who will ever understand. You begin to wonder if maybe you’re alone in this world and that there isn’t a person or a place to which you can turn to find some small bit of solace.