Anyone that has had a child die would agree that celebrations can be very hard. It’s difficult to enjoy such events when you know that your child will never have another birthday or Christmas morning. We’ve made it through a year of these dates since Allie has died. Each one is a challenge, but we’ve completely changed our traditions and survived. But there is one date that we skipped entirely this year. That date is our wedding anniversary.

Kyle and I were married on June 12th, 2004. We were young and completely idealistic about our future. It’s a good thing that we couldn’t see what our future held, or we would have self-destructed on that altar. For the first eight years, our lives were so good. We never knew what real problems were. We had no trouble having children, and I had easy pregnancies. Evie and Allie were born healthy, and we knew we were blessed. I would say to Kyle, “Life is good.” And he’d say, “No. Life is great.”

Of course, life can change very quickly, and it did for us. Things that you never dreamed would happen do. In the span of a couple of months, we went from having a healthy preschooler to living in a children’s hospital. The plans and visions for our future were suddenly ripped apart. We had control over nothing, and we were completely terrified.

We were terrified for good reason. Allie had an inoperable, terminal brain tumor called gliomatosis cerebri. She would never celebrate another birthday. She would never dress up for Halloween again. She would never have another Christmas morning. The tumor was very aggressive, and Allie died in less than three months.

When we married, I thought we had control over our lives. I never thought our child would get brain cancer. I never thought we would be in the pediatric ICU preparing for her death. But that’s exactly where we ended up. It was there, in that PICU room, where we asked for mercy and waited for Allie to be free of suffering. It was our ninth wedding anniversary, and that was the last day that Allie showed any signs of life. We took turns sleeping in the hospital bed next to Allie that night. We held her as we let her go.

We have made it through one year without Allie, and this has tested us as individuals, as parents, and as a couple. Surviving this has not made us stronger. We are weak and beaten from the intense waves of grief. We will never be the same. Our hearts are broken.

June 12th is a most somber day for Kyle and I, so we did not celebrate our tenth anniversary. This year, we chose to spend the day with Evie at the beach. We carefully carved Allie’s name in the sand and placed a starfish next to it. Together, we stood on the shore holding on to each other as the next wave hit.