Grief is Strange

Rylee is missing Regan and she doesn't even realize what she is doing. This week she has started wearing a bow in her hair everyday. These are all Regan's bows of course. She has also started using baby lotion. We always used Baby lotion on Regan. So it smells like "her" to us. This morning both her and Ryder are in the bathroom slathering it on! Both of these things are strange because they are teenagers. She also drew me the sweetest picture of what she called her "happy" picture. I am standing at the door when an apron on and she and Regan are playing under our tree. In this picture Regan is in her chair and Rylee has a jump rope in her hand. It made me cry. All of this does actually because I find these bows everywhere, so I am constantly putting them back in Regan's closet. This was not uncommon when Regan was alive but a bit strange now. This along with smelling Regan everywhere because my other kids now smell like her is causing my brain to be confused! To top it all off last week I found one of Regan's socks in our clean laundry. I am standing at the table folding a load of laundry before school and low and behold there is a Regan sock in there. Dryers eat socks and sometimes spit them back out I guess.

I just keep leaning in and keep trying to navigate through these strange waters of grief.