July

My insides start to twist and constrict when July comes around. It's not quite as bad as March, but close. My birthday falls on the 5th of July and Natalie's comes three+ weeks later on the 29th. My birthday has become something I reluctantly "celebrate." Part of me feels guilty to be celebrating another birthday. How can I be doing this when Natalie isn't?! Part of me wishes it wasn't here because it means soon her birthday will be here and that will bring yet another period of agonizing pain, even greater than the normal pain I live with every day. What should be a happy time of year for our family is now shrouded in sadness. It isn't fair. It isn't right. But it is the way it is and I will try, as in everything, to make the best of it.