I have found some words on grief which I have found helpful. Most of them come from Senator Ted Kennedy’s book True Compass, which I highly recommend.

“It has been said that time heals all wounds. I don’t agree. The wounds remain. Time–the mind, protecting its sanity–covers them with some scar tissue and the pain lessens, but it is never gone.” Rose Kennedy

“There are no words to dispel your feelings at this time, and there is no time that will ever dispel them. Nor is it any easier the second time than it was the first. When one of your children goes out of your life, you think of what he might have done with a few more years, and you wonder what you are going to do with the rest of yours. Then one day, because there is a world to be lived in, you find yourself a part of it again, trying to accomplish something–something that he did not have time enough to do.” Joseph Kennedy, Senior

“Every single one of us, if we are awake to the brokenness of the world and of our lives, wonders at some point, ‘How could you allow this, God? I believe, but help me in my unbelief!’ ” Ted Kennedy

“When you bury your parents, you bury the past, but when you bury your child, you bury the future.” Unknown

“Fiction is unlike life in that fiction has to make sense.” Unknown

I appreciate all of you who read these words and who support our family with your prayers and friendship.

Ann

Today is the day– Heaven day. It is the very day four years ago that Cameron was taken from me. It is hard to believe. It has only been four years, it seems like a life time. Only four years since I stood in that little street and looked down at my broken baby. Only four years since I felt my heart break/ my world crashing down on me. Only four years since I had to face the grimmest of realities, a life without my precious child.
How long ago and yet so recent. That event so cruel that stole my innocence and security. I never spent a moment not worrying and protecting my children and yet I still lost. I still ended up a mom who couldn’t keep her baby safe. I still can’t believe it.
It’s cruel, it’s ironic, its unfathomable. I can’t be grateful. Its not okay. I felt angry and abandonned and alone. I felt betrayed by the very reality I thought I knew. I wasn’t pure enough or faithful enough to accept it without a fight. And yet I wasn’t given a choice. I was not asked if I could handle this. I was just slammed in the face with horror.
It isn’t pretty and there is no way to sugar coat it. I can grow and evolve and be brave. But I can’t understand and I can’t explain it away. I can’t put it all into simple terms that make sense. I can’t find the silver lining. I can’t find answers to questions I didn’t choose to ask.
But that is not the end. I am still here. I am still a mother, a doctor, a sister, a daughter, a wife. I still exist. I have choices to make.
One thing that helps is that I have amazing friends and family. I am surrounded by loved ones who lift me up and support me. I am amazed by the positive effect that you all have on my life. You have raised my head in the lowest of times. You have encouraged and prayed for me.
So for now all I know to do is to honor Cameron. I fight so that she will be remembered. I push to celebrate her life in any way I can. Derrick and I continue to promote Cameron’s Amazing Book Club. We share books with children and promote a legacy of reading. And we raise funds for the Cameron Bobbitt Memorial Fund so we can help children and families. Our wonderful  friends and family continue to contribute both books and funds to help children in Cameron’s name.
“God is great, but sometimes life ain’t good. When I pray, it doesn’t always turn out like I think it should… But I do it anyway.”

Over the last few weeks, we have received numerous books. We want to thank you all for sharing. Our friends, Lance and Ulrika Belline, collected books at their Christmas party. It was very special to us and there were over 75 books collected!
We also want to thank Rod and Casey Roark and their precious baby twin boys! They contributed a great bunch of books for Christmas.
Thanks as well to Alison Brashears and her family for their continued support of our bookclub. The Brashears family contributes books throughout the year, with another great bundle at Christmas.  Our wonderful family including GrAnn-Ma and Grandpa, Aunt Louann and cousins– Ryan and Rachel, Uncle Chris and Aunt Catherine and cousins Graham and Caroline and Aunt Frances and Uncle Jimmy all included books for Cameron for Christmas!!! 

I would like to thank my cousin, Alicia and the Haley crew,  as well as my my good friend Cherry Frierson, for contributing books for Cameron’s Heaven Day.  And some other great friends from here in town, the Weller’s helped out with a HUGE box of great books just last week.

What a blessing to have these wonderful friends who help us continue to make a difference in our daughter’s name!

It is time for me to say Merry Christmas to my baby. This is the way I do it– by writing on her blog. Cameron, I can’t believe we have to have another Christmas without you. This makes our fourth. You should be here. You should be nine. You should be getting tall, with big-girl teeth. You should be asking for clothes and rolling your eyes when I annoy you. You should be alive…
Last year, I worked really hard on putting together the Hope Tree. It was a tribute to Cameron, every ornament either pink, or an angel, or with a message of hope. We actually kept it up all year, so it is still here. It still honors Cameron, symbolized her beauty.
Last year, the word hope became my favorite word. I think the reason Hope is so important is because no matter how bad things get, it is there. It keeps a person going when she thinks the world is dark and she is alone. Hope is not something we can consider or choose. It is not a thought, it is a feeling/ a spirit. It is from the soul. Hope isn’t something I have, it is something that has me. It lifts up my head when I want to hang it low and refuse to believe. Hope is a gift, a blessing.
Hope has been my Emanuel– God with me. It is the spirit within, my salvation.
Tonight as I sat in church and worshipped on the eve of the birth of Christ, I realized that hope has continued to blossom within me. Whereas a year ago hope helped me feel that salvation and the existence of God were a possibilty, this year I have regained my faith. Faith is also not a thought, choice or decision. Faith is a feeling of assurance inside our hearts that it is all real. There is nothing to figure out. It is just there. I have it back. Emanuel is within me. I believe.
If you’ve never had a doubt that God is with you, your are blessed. I hope you never have to go that low. But if you have, know that you are not alone. You can survive this, and you are chosen by God to be His. You may not know it or feel it now, but maybe you will someday. You have hope, right? So keep moving forward.
God never promised us that we would have it easy. He didn’t even say that He would spare us from pain. We will experience cancer, or divorce, or job loss, or rejection. We may lose a spouse, a young parent, or even our own child. That is the human condition, and we live it everyday. But God came and He, too, lived a human life. He chose it to show that no matter how hard life gets, he is with us– even til the end of the age.
When I imagine the birth of Christ I do smile a little picturing the little baby. To me, babies are the ultimate miracle. So it makes perfect sense for Him to come as a babe. He had to– how else could He become one of us? Have you ever met a human who didn’t start out as a baby? Imagine what it would have felt like to hold the baby, Jesus, in your arms. Wow, what a tremendous power that little baby held.
Cameron was my baby, and I did get the chance to hold her in my arms. She was a tiny, precious miracle. She had 10 fingers and 10 toes. She had this brown birthmark right in the center of her back. She got ear infections and had trouble gaining weight as a baby. She was a fast learner, spoke early, was curious about the world. She got a chance to be here, only it was too short. Just like Jesus, she was taken away too soon. Cameron, unlike Jesus, was just an ordinary human. Well, to others who never knew her, maybe. But to me, she was a piece of me– walking around on this earth living her life. I lost that piece of me for a little while. But because of Emanuel I have not lost her forever. He died for her that she might live. And He died for you, and for me. Salvation is what connects us to the next life. I am thankful for that gift. I am beyond grateful that I have true faith.
God, I am humbly yours as I await the celebration of the birth of your child. He has given all so that we can have these astounding gifts. Faith, Hope, Love, Grace, Salvation. Cameron.

Thanksgiving is a time for all of us to count our blessings. Two years ago, at Thanksgiving my mother shared a message she wrote with our family. It was about how the first Thanksgiving was put together in a time of extreme duress. But even though the pilgrims were tattered and torn, they still gave thanks to God for what they did have. She went on to compare that to our tragedy– the recent loss of Cameron. She reminded us to give thanks even though we were so blinded by our loss that we couldn’t even perceive our blessings.
Looking back two years into the past, I realize how far we have all come. At that time I didn’t know if I would survive. I felt certain at any time I could have a nervous breakdown and be done with! I wasn’t sure if I had faith, if I could even count on the miracle of Jesus. I was completely lost. Now, I know that I have blessings. I know that I have so much good in my life that I can go forward. And with my faith restored, I know that I can and will see Cameron again one day!
I am first and foremost thankful for my family. I have three living and beautiful girls who love me so dearly. Whenever I come home from anything– 10 hours at work or 5 minutes to the gas station– I am greeted with hugs and shouts of “Mama’s home!” They are smart and loving and affectionate and empathetic. They fill my heart with love! My husband is truly the best father I could hope for with my girls. He is silly, yet stern. He is able to make them laugh or cry. He chases them until they are all exhausted. He reads to them, serves thems, and holds them. My parents are a true joy. I love spending time with them. They are a perfect example of a life-long happily married couple. Inspirational! Derrick and I both have great brothers and sisters who make us laugh and stand up for us when we need them!
I am also truly grateful to be living the dream of having a solo practice. It has been amazing to be able to put my touch on a clinic, to practice the way I feel in my heart is the right way for me. My patients love it. My staff loves it. And I love it. I am so blessed to have these little childen walk through that door and into my heart!
I am thankful for the opportunity to good in Cameron’s name. This month we made three distributions from CAB Memorial Fund. One of the donations was $500 to EOA Children’s House in Fayetteville. Derrick and I took the check personally, met the director and toured the facility. This is an organization that is changing the lives of abused and neglected children. They desperately need a new building, and our contribution is going to help them build it. Our donation will allow Cameron to have a brick with her name on it in this new facility.
I sobbed as we drove away from that place. Not only did I sob for those adorable little children– who looked just like regular kids, but had been through horrible domestic situations. But I sobbed because Cameron gets to help them have a better life. Derrick reminded me that when we lost Cameron he asked why this couldn’t have happened to a child who didn’t have such a great life. Why God would take Cameron from her happy home, but leave a child who is being beaten and neglected on earth to suffer. But we saw these kids as real people, children who have hope for a better life. All children deserve that. I am truly thankful for the gift of Hope. Hope is so important. There are times when we all feel we have lost our way. But as long as we have hope, we can find our way back to the light that is God. We can find our blessings both here on earth and in the life that is to come.
Happy thanksgiving!

I can’t pray.

I haven’t been blogging much lately, and I have to soul search as to why. As you can probably imagine, I still grieve everyday. I always have the loss of Cameron with me. It is like a scar. But just like any scar fades over time, so does the overt daily appearance of grieving. It is not obvious that I hurt, and those who meet me might not even suspect that I carry around this torch.
Grief is weird. I control it, yet it controls me. I feel responsible to grieve. I feel that one of my purposes is to keep alive the awareness that Cameron didn’t get to live out her life. I have a job to do. Not only do I have to survive this, but I have to make it matter.
I did not- and would never- volunteer for this. I would much prefer to be a normal mom, with her perfect family, complaining about spats and homework and braces and attitudes. I would love to think that it is just so hard raising kids these days (naively believing that somehow those worries compare to anything like not having that child here to complain about). If I had a choice to be quiet and safe and insignificant, I would. But instead I am in a group of people that no mother would ever sign up for. I have to keep my little girl here in the hearts of others. It gets old. It can be exhausting.
I think that is why I sometimes fail to come to Cameron’s blog and write. My scar is always there, but I don’t have to look in the mirror. I know its there, but sometimes it is easier to just keep moving and just keep pushing and not stop to explore the damage. It is not really pretending it is not there, it is just a way of avoiding something that I know is everpresent.

I want to share a quote with you that I thought was really excellent at putting into words how it feels to lose a child. Grief occurs whether the lost loved one is a friend, parent, grandparent, or child. But there is a difference when it is someone young, robbed of the life she was meant to live. This quote is by Gloria Steinem.

“When the past dies, there is mourning- but when the future dies our imaginations are compelled to carry it on.”

That is my experience. I am compelled to keep Cameron alive within, and carry on the existence that was taken from her. I have to spend more time inside my own mind, because she is not here to show me who she is. And no matter how much I experience or accomplish in life– this will be a part of who I am forever.

Mary and Martha Center (Dequeen, AR), Women’s Crisis Center of NE Arkansas (Jonesboro, AR), Center for Children (Lowell, AR), Benton County Women’s Shelter (Bentonville, AR), and Project Hospitality (Staten Island, NY).

This year we donated $500 to Children’s House in Fayetteville, $250 to NWA Children’s Shelter, and $250 to Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

We want to extend our sincere thanks to the Guajardo family from North Little Rock, AR.  It was such a blessing to receive the shipment of books from you guys.  I hope that you enjoyed picking out the books as a family and I assure you some children will be very blessed to read them.  Your gift to us has helped us to feel loved and special.  The sweet letter truly brought tears to my eyes.  Thanks again for thinking of us and helping others.  Love, Susan and the Bobbitt family