"Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass...."

Today marks the one year anniversary of the day we said good bye to our little bundle of joy Lucas Alexander. November 24, 2008 is the day that our feet were pulled from under us. It is the day that we were told that our little boy is very sick and that things did not look good. It is the day that we left the emergency room empty handed and broken hearted. It is the day we were forced to start our new life, the day we had to begin our journey to make the best of our new "normal life." I decided that today would be the day to start a blog on how we are Learning to Dance in the Rain after the Storm and how we are continuously trying to balance our sadness of losing our little baby boy with the hopes for our future.

We are exactly one year into our grief and things do look a little brighter than they did a year ago; however, it is a never ending battle to make the best of our life as we now know it. Not one day passes that I do not think about the one month I had with this perfect little boy. He brought so much joy to us in such little time. We could never have asked for a better gift than him. While I remember the good times that we had with Lucas with a big smile and tears running down my face, I am deeply saddened by his loss. I feel a void, big emptiness, in my heart as if someone ripped a piece out of it. The pain of losing our firstborn son, is like no pain I have ever felt before. I think it is best described as someone stabbing you in your chest, grabbing your heart and squeezing all life out of it. It is a heartache that is far greater than what is described in romance novels and I have come to experience that heartache is not just fiction, it actually does exist . The pain lessened over time and the outburst are much more controlled now. Most of the time, I am able to tell in advance before the tears come streaming down and I manage to avoid having outbursts in public now (this is not 100% perfected by any means).

I will not be able to describe what the past year has been like and how we managed to go about our day to day activity. However, a quote by Ted Kennedy that a good friend of mine wrote to me in a letter on Lucas' first birthday, says it all too well.

"As you know so well, the passage of time never really heals the tragic memory of such a great loss, but we carry on because we have to, because our loved one would want us to and because there is still light to guide us in the world from the love they gave us!"

We are where we are today, just because Lucas would want us to be happy again. Lucas would want us to find joy in life and to smile again. Lucas wants us to remember the happy days we had with him and he wants us to continue life and try to find our way through this difficult journey. We are pulling through for him while graciously keeping him in our hearts and memory.