remembering

It's been a lovely Remembrance day weekend, and I have been enjoying these four days off.  The weather has turned chilly, and I keep on reminding Michael to put on the winter tires in case it snows.  You absolutely need winter tires living on a mountain.  We're babysitting our landlords cats and it's been nice to have a purring critter fall asleep with me at night. Remembering Mango, our cat of 12 years. This long weekend is a nice break before the craziness at school of report cards, and then a big Christmas production.  Last time this year, I could only eat salty things, and I remember driving down the mountain just to have a McDonald's egg mcmuffin.  We've had a pretty social weekend. Dinner at a friends, and then last night I went out to a Burlesque show full of glitter and boas.  It was a fabulous night of fun, celebrating women, and eating cheesecake.  In the quiet moments, I've been remembering.  Remembering being pregnant, remembering Luka's birth, and remembering her death.  At the Remembrance day assembly on Wednesday, at our school, I had to stop singing O Canada because of tears.  At every assembly when I was pregnant, when there was music,  Luka would move in response.  I would sing to her every night before I fell asleep, "You are my sunshine."   She loved music, and I have no doubt she would have been a musician if she had been born healthy.  Remembering is painful but necessary.  On Thursday, before going to bed I looked at her photos of when she was just born. She was so beautiful.  I remember her looking at me as she was wheeled out of the operating room,  and I remember thinking she looked just like her grandmother.  I remember her soft skin, and when you touched her through the incubator and spoke to her she would respond.  It's amazing how I can remember those three beautiful but difficult days so clearly.  It's like it happened yesterday.  Some people would want the memories to fade, but I need to remember.  It's all I have left of her, and I need to hold on to something.  I don't want to forget, and I look forward to remembering her with her brother or sister someday, when that time arrives.