Zoe. One year since you left your poor, tired, cancer-ravaged body behind. We never wanted you to leave but we knew you needed to be released from this. I remember not being ready when they took your body away and feeling at peace when they brought you back home. In your woven willow casket, dressed in your favourite party dress and well worn sparkly shoes, surrounded by tokens for your journey you looked just as beautiful as ever to me; my sleeping beauty.
Apart from watching you take your last breaths, closing your casket and looking on your perfect face for the last time was the hardest thing I had ever done. Except that all the days since have been hard too. 365 days without hearing your voice, without feeling your warm little body climb into bed with me in the middle of the night, without catching a glimpse of your soul through your big brown eyes, without your infectious joy and beyond your years wisdom. In the beginning I marked each day as one day further from you, until I realised that each day forward is one day closer to you too. There have been so many days when I have not wanted to keep going forward, but it seems I am a survivor and I think you taught me that. In this way, (and so many others) you are still and always will be a part of me.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
– ee cummings