Our sweet daughter, Kamri Blaire Thomas, was born on December 28, 2016 and passed away on January 20, 2017. Since then, we have been navigating through a journey of grief and sharing what that has looked and felt like along the way. To read Kamri’s story and medical updates as we were sharing them in real time while she was alive, you can click the button below.
The following is a record of all of the posts we have shared since about our grief in losing her, being parents of a child who is not here with us physically, and learning to continue to do life here on earth until we see her again in Eternity. This list is in chronological order, starting with the posts that were shared just after she died and ending with our most recent, as of present day.
HOW ARE WE DOING?
posted on: march 1, 2017
The question we get every day. Sometimes multiple times each day. Yesterday marks exactly two months since Kamri was born and one month since her funeral. How are we doing? seems like the hardest question to answer, especially because our answer could be vastly different every single time we’re asked…
ANGER
posted on: march 21, 2017
Let’s just cut to the chase here. So far, this road we seemed to have been called down? It sucks. And we are pissed. Sure, there are moments when we see God at work, fleeting instances where we laugh and smile and feel hopeful again. But there are also moments of the deepest, most intense anger we’ve ever experienced. And these are the moments when we realize just how much pain we’re in. The pain is so raw, so piercing, and so relentless. It will throw you into a tailspin…
TRUST
posted on: april 13, 2017
This week is Holy Week and at the end of it, there will be a celebration. Truth be told, this year I identify more with the darkness of the next three days than I do with the light and celebration of Sunday. The next three days, the darkest in the history of the world, resonate with me. The pain of the world as we remember the death of Christ finally feels like something I can relate to. My world is so dark, so empty, so barren. And yet, God is still here…
HURT
posted on: may 24, 2017
It feels like a wound. A wound that is so deep and so personal and so raw and so fragile. It has been four months since Kamri died, but the pain of the wound feels like it’s been no time at all. The wound is consuming and engulfs everything in its presence. Our thoughts, our work, our daily to-dos… they all come back to Kamri….
REALNESS
posted on: june 9, 2017
Realness is an actual word. I know this because I Googled it just to make sure I hadn’t titled this post with a figment of my imagination. 🙂 Realness is something that our world uses sparingly, and only in certain contexts. It is easy to be real when the reality feels good and looks good. It is not easy to be real when the reality is raw and sometimes biting…
SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT
posted on: october 15, 2017
It’s been some time… four months, to be exact, since we last checked in here. I could tell you that a lot has happened these last four months. I could also tell you that not much has happened at all. Both would be true. That’s the thing about grief- each day, week, month feels both monumental and meaningless all at the same time…
COPING WITH CHRISTMAS
posted on: december 23, 2017
The Christmas season is a whirlwind for everyone. It seems like we anticipate it for ages, but then it comes and goes in the blink of an eye. Our Christmas this year has been an interesting one… in some ways, easier than we expected and in others, just as hard….
CELEBRATING "KAM-UARY"
posted on: january 8, 2018
We just wanted to pop in and let you know how much we have appreciated the love and support of our KamFam going into this month. Mitch has so sweetly nicknamed it “Kamuary” on our kitchen calendar, making us smile every time we see it. 🙂 It also feels appropriate, as this time last year, Kamri was alive and our world was consumed with soaking in every last bit of her we could get our hands on. This year, we remember where we were and what we were doing, which is both a beautiful and painful experience…
FEAR
posted on: february 6, 2018
I’ve avoided writing this post for a long time. For the most part, it is just easier to avoid thinking about, to avoid letting our minds go to the places we are most afraid of. Part of the experience of grief is fear. Fear of obvious things and fear of things that you don’t expect or that most may not guess. One of the questions we get a lot (and rightly so, as it is the question to ask when a baby is coming) is “Are you excited?”…
DISBELIEF
posted on: march 3, 2018
Oh my… there is so much to say about these last few weeks. Today, Holden is officially 24 days old. While we rejoice in this, it is not lost on us that tomorrow, he will have officially surpassed Kamri in days lived on this earth…
WELL
posted on: january 26, 2019
It feels foreign, and yet familiar. Putting my fingers on the keys and typing letters, forming words, creating sentences in the hope of capturing the thoughts that are swirling around in my mind, that take up residency in the essence of who I am. It has been a long time since I put the grief and our journey through it into words here and my heart is both beating quickly because of the emotional investment I know this will take, but also very much at peace because this has always been one of the fullest ways I process and communicate our experience….
ROOM
posted on: august 28, 2020
Less than one week. In less than a week from now (we have a C-Section schedule for September 2nd), we welcome another baby into our home, into our lives. It’s always striking to me how time continues forward, how one season is never here forever (although, I have just about had it with how long we’ve been simmering away here in August). It’s been two and a half years since we last brought a baby home and over three and a half since we welcomed our first baby. I feel like I say this a lot in regards to grief, but almost four years later, the same is true: A lot has changed and also nothing at all….
HOSPITAL
posted on: september 12, 2020
This post is a little less straight forward, a little trickier to explain. I might not even push “Publish” at the end because maybe it’s just the act of writing that will be enough for my mind to release everything that has been whirling around inside for the last week….
NERVOUS
posted on: october 6, 2021
It’s pretty obvious our story hasn’t been kept private. From day one, we’ve shared the intimate details of Kamri’s medical progress and hurdles, what it felt like the days and weeks and months after she died, and what living here without her has looked like for us in the everyday, but also in the bigger milestones and moments. Most of that sharing, though, has been through written word. Actually, nearly all of it. Until this past Monday…
IT'S BEEN SIX YEARS...
posted on: january 30, 2023
You know, grief is really weird. Like really, really weird. And what we’re learning is that it doesn’t get any less weird the longer you live with it. I’ve had a lot of thoughts swirling for the last two months and have spent a good bit of mental capacity trying to streamline them into words that fit together to make sentences that make even an ounce of sense. Not just for the sake of writing them down for anyone else to read, but also to better understand them myself…
