September.

When I saw the calendar this week, it took my breath away.

On the first of the month, I was making my breakfast and glanced over at the wall where our kitchen calendar hangs. I stopped what I was doing.

September.

Bill had changed the calendar, something I usually do, and it literally took my breath away, seeing it staring to me like that. Clearly I’ve known it was coming, known it would be here, and have purposefully planned for it in an effort to hopefully cushion the blow I knew was coming.

And there it was, still written on the calendar. Evelyn’s due date. September 5.

There’s several exclamation marks after it, a reminder from a time that’s long gone. It’s the only calendar I didn’t remove it from. After she died, I would find things in my planner or on my work calendar that were devastating to read. Her baby shower dates, due dates I had made for myself to have work done by in preparation for my maternity leave. A maternity leave that turned into a brief bereavement leave, four months early.

I know it’s just another date. In the grand scheme of my grief journey, it should just be another blip on the radar. There was and will be so many days that are just tinged with grief and meaning. But this will be the end of me looking down and holding my belly and saying to Evelyn: You should be here.

Every week since she died has been a reminder: I should be X weeks pregnant now. This has also been a reminder of how many weeks we have lived since she’s been gone. Evelyn died when I was 20 weeks pregnant, so we will soon have had exactly the same number of weeks without her as we did with her.

Now, she should really be here. We should be holding her for the first time. We should be bringing her home to the house we bought for her. We should be losing sleep because we’re caring for her and not because we’re consumed with grief and anxiety. There should be joy. There should be milestones. There should be our daughter.

We have a few things planned for the weekend to both distract ourselves and honor our sweet girl. We’re surrounding ourselves with family and are giving ourselves lots of grace. It’s not how things should be, but it’s what we have.

Milestones and important dates are just hard in grief. Anyone who has walked this path knows. I find myself already looking ahead to what would have been Evelyn’s first Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas and already dreading the weight those days will bring. It’s all hard. Parents weren’t meant to do this.

As we’re almost to this big milestone date, I’m looking back on how far we’ve come, and I’m still in disbelief that we’re here. The concept of time while grieving is baffling. It both drags on and flies by, and both feel awful. These days, I’m more equipped to handle my grief. My grief hasn’t shrunk, but I’ve grown. This has not been a small task, and I’m honestly so proud of myself for how far I’ve come. I’m comfortable with it now, and while my grief isn’t who I am, it is a part of me.

Moving past Evelyn’s due date is just another hurdle in our lives without her physically here. We will still keep loving her and honoring her memory and talking about her. Time is moving forward, and we have to as well. But she’s coming with us, every step of the way.