Oh my sweet baby … eight months since you earned your wings! I hope you are using them well! It is the holiday season here and you know much I detest the holidays! Grinch is an understatement! The month between Thanksgiving and the first of the year always brought me into a dark place and you were my ray of sunshine. Our annual Santa photos. Getting you presents and wrapping them up. Watching you unwrap your presents. Taking our Christmas walk on the beach while we watched you spread some cheer in your Christmas dress of the year! Just basking in life. You knew how to live life to the fullest and make each day a gift and recognize how special it was.
I cannot believe in one short month, on January 8th, it will be the month that you lost your leg. Such my brave girl. I’ve looked back on old videos from last December and you did walk with a limp, a little slow. I hope you know that I always put your best interests first and I didn’t realize how lame that leg had really come. I am sorry I didn’t notice it earlier.
I remember last holiday season, I spent every night with you. I asked “Santa” to make you healthy as we were already a few months into our cancer battle and you had gotten a couple treatments of chemo. We had gotten clear X-rays … no mets! The best gift ever. I felt that you were going to win this battle but looking back, you stayed strong and happy for ME to help get me through these horrible months that I hate so much.
You always – still – show up just when I need you. This weekend, I saw two pennies at the cash register at Petco … those were definitely from you! And last night, I saw a single gem on the floor … it had traveled really far from where it was so I knew you helped place it there so I would see it and feel you. You know how hard these anniversaries are on me and how with each month, I feel you slipping farther and farther from my grasp. I struggle to hold onto your spirit and your love because if I can’t feel it, it wasn’t real.
I have changed, Shelby Lynne. Definitely changed. Not good or bad just different. There will never be another love like ours. And there shouldn’t be. We had the greatest love of all time. You taught me to be a “mom” and I channel that every day. You taught me to love. Not just love for the sake of love but love in the way you let your walls down and allow your heart to be filled with all things good. You taught me to see the best in people. You taught me to trust. And trust that while I still feel tremendous sadness and pain, there are many more days that I celebrate the great things we did together. All the ‘firsts’ I had with you, have helped get to me the place I am now.
I am older, I am wiser, I am definitely more jaded. But I still believe in hope. And in love. And in positive thinking. I will reach for your strength over the next couple of weeks to get me into January … and then when I relive all our ‘firsts’ of that as we inch closer to that dreaded angelversary. I don’t cry as much for you … I hope you don’t mind. You are still the first thought I have when I wake up and the last before I go to bed. I still talk to you all the time. But my tears have tried up. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t love or grieve any less … it MUST mean that your strength has fully entered my heart and my soul.
I am serious when I say I feel your strength and power every day… I love you, Miss Shelby Lynne. I miss you every day. I cannot wait till we are together again. #loveofmylife #shelbystrong
Happy 8th month Angelversary Shelby. Thank you Alison for sharing some more of your wonderful memories with your baby. I love each & every picture.
Hugs
Michelle & Angel Sassy
Thinking of you on this Angelversary. Shelby will always be a special part of Tripawds and you are always here to help others. Thanks for the chance to share a bit of Shelby.
Take care – Luanne & Team Shooter
“your strength has fully entered my heart and my soul.”
Absolutely Allison. She would want nothing less.
{{{hugs}}}}
Pawesome pics!!! 🙂