Last week we decided to move. We weren’t really actively looking for a house or considering a move anytime soon, but I stumbled on a listing for a house and five days later we found ourselves under contract. It wasn’t totally surprising to me. We’ve always known that our current home is not where we want to be forever, and well, the timing just seems right. We debated the purchase for a few days until Travis ultimately reminded me that our current house holds a lot of memories for us and it would be really nice to go somewhere else and just start over. I couldn’t argue with that. Because while we have had some of the best moments of our lives inside these walls, this is also the home where we survived the worst year of our lives. It is time to start over. And how much more fitting that we are moving to a brand new home still under construction. There is no funny wallpaper installed by the previous owner, or strange dirt in strange places, or memories or feelings associated with it. When we went to see it for the first time it was simply a framework wrapped in plastic. No finished walls, or electricity or pipework, just the dream of a new home, the dream of a new life that we would get the chance to control. Since it was already in the process of being built we couldn’t completely customize everything but we would get to decide how it was finished.

Travis threw himself fully into the process and three days after signing the contract I watched him take control as he walked through the house with the builder and went over the list of things he would like to have added or changed in the plans. We picked the flooring, the cabinets, the countertops, the paint, the exterior finishes, even the location of electrical outlets. Now, most of the decisions have been made and all that’s left to do is wait for it to be ready while we prepare to leave our old house behind.

I’ve slowly started going through old papers and books and deciding what I really want to keep. We’ve moved many times before but this time feels different. This time we’re starting fresh. I don’t want to bring anything to our new house that doesn’t belong. I want to take the next few months to declutter my life. This morning I went through some notebooks from nursing school and papers from when I was planning our wedding over 8 years ago while Logan played with his trains next to me. Then Travis brought me a bag and asked if I was ready to go through it. I held out my arms and responded yes. He asked again, clarifying, “you know what’s in here, right.” Without hesitation, I took the bag.

It was a blue, reusable, fabric bag with the words, “Rocky Mountain Children’s Hospital” and “Presbyterian St. Lukes,” written in white on either side. This wasn’t the bag that contained the important items like Ava’s photos or footprints or even the clothes she wore. This was the bag we had gotten on our second day in the hospital, when I was still pregnant, at the NICU parent prep course. This bag should have been easy to sort through. The first thing I saw when I looked inside was a teddy bear. I remembered seeing it for the first time in the class and thinking about how we would give it to our baby and it would forever remind us of the people that said they were going to save her. It felt softer than I remembered and I held it to my face. The hospital smell was gone. Then there was the notebook we had put out at Ava’s funeral. We looked at the names, astounded at how many people came, some people we didn’t recall being there but now seeing their names reminded us of their presence. There were 70 people. We reveled in that for a moment. Then I opened the folder. In it was all the information we had been given in our NICU course. I had scribbled some notes on it like, “How long after c-section before mom can go to NICU?” and “Facetime available in NICU,” and “Dad stay with me, Travis with baby?” I looked at the garbage next to me and I froze. I sat there for a minute while Travis continued going through the bag. The next thing he pulled out was a hospital receiving blanket that had held Ava at the funeral home until we placed her in her casket. Travis suggested throwing it away, pointing out it had a blood stain on it. All I could whisper was, “I’m not ready.” What the fuck was I thinking?

What was I thinking going through that bag when ten minutes earlier I was debating whether or not to keep irrelevant, outdated notes from nursing school?! If I couldn’t throw away useless class notes or detailed plans from our wedding, how could I possibly begin to sort out Ava’s things from the hospital? I kept staring at the folder from the NICU class. It was so stupid. Why couldn’t I throw it away? I don’t need it. It serves no other purpose than to remind me that my baby didn’t even make it to the NICU. I remember crying through that class as I realized that the NICU was the best I could hope for. That folder held no purpose for me then and it certainly holds no purpose now, but for some reason, I couldn’t let it go. Travis hugged me and we decided not to worry about it right now. He took the rest of the items and put them back with Ava’s mementos, but as he left he shoved some things into the garbage.

When he was gone I looked in the trash and saw the blue bag along with some pens and post-it notes that were stamped with the hospital name. The thrifty part of me started to reach for them to rescue them from the garbage but then I stopped. I gazed at the items in the trash and I started to cry because while I am looking forward to starting a new chapter of our lives in our brand new house I am also so afraid of moving forward and leaving Ava behind. As time ticks away, and her pile of things dwindles I’m afraid of truly losing her forever. And I know its so silly.  I don’t need to hold on to all the physical reminders of Ava. We have plenty of post-it notes around the house, I don’t need to keep the ones that remind me of my crushing grief. Ava is not a post-it note. We have plenty of pens, I don’t need one that will break my heart when I write my grocery list. Ava is not a pen. We have more reusable shopping bags than we know what to do with, I don’t need to keep a bag that will remind me I’ve one less mouth to feed while I’m buying eggs. Ava is not a shopping bag. And so I took a deep breath and removed my hand from the garbage, leaving the discarded items there where they belong.

Ava is no longer something tangible. She is energy and light and a series of memories and moments that are kept safe, always, in my heart and in my mind and even preserved in my blog. She does not exist in this material world and I do not need to hold on to insignificant material things to prove her existence. The memory of my experience at the hospital or my memory of Ava’s birth is not contained in a bunch of papers orienting me to the NICU she never saw, or a teddy bear she never got to hold. My love for my daughter does not need physical proof. She is not a bloodstain on a blanket.  The NICU papers will likely find their way into the trash before we move and perhaps with time, I will be able to let go of the teddy bear and the blanket too because that is the logical thing to do. But grief does not know logic, and to merely hold her in my heart is still not enough, so, for now, they will remain, tucked safely away in Ava’s dwindling pile of things.