This site is the living memory of Lila Rupinsky, our beautiful daughter, who passed away at 8 days old. This is the story of our precious baby girl and how we are dealing with our infant loss.
We received this video from a reader on our blog. We have never met her and yet she found our blog and was kind enough to make this in Lila's honor. We wanted to share it on here, but I will warn you it was hard for Mike and I to watch it without crying.
Thank you Cynthia, this was truly touching. -Jenny
Today was one of those nice days after weeks and weeks of cold weather. I obviously enjoy the nice weather but did't think I was ready for it. Lila was born in the winter on a blistery cold snowy day and when she died the weather was very similar. As each day passes, I know that sooner or later the weather will warm up for good and spring will come. What bothers me is that as we move away from winter, we move away from when Lila was here. Sometimes I find myself feeling like I don't know Lila and that the pictures we have up are of someone else's baby. I then get angry that I had these thoughts and remember that for those eight days, Jenny and I knew more about her than anyone. I guess the root of the problem is that I won't get to see Lila grow up and do all the things that kids do and I won't get to know her better than I already do.
I went for a run today, 3 miles, and I was reminded of how out of shape I am. I thought about Lila a lot and was going back and forth between being angry and thinking about what we could still do for her. But I also was reminded what a nice day can do. It was refreshing, the sun made me feel good and I remembered how much I enjoyed watching golf on TV. Jenny and I still have ups and downs and we will continue to do so for a long while but what I took away from today was that things will continue to come along and lift us up, if only for a moment. I like to associate these moments with Lila helping us through the rough days. - Mike
Yesterday was one month since Lila died. Time is not healing for us. I always felt like I had experience with grief and knew what to expect with it. There is nothing familiar with this type of grief. Everything reminds me of Lila and what could have been. I feel that I am living two lives right now. One life is the life that should have been but it is also the life that I have to only see in my imagination. The life that we thought we were going to have, the life that would have been the greatest life we could have imagined. I see Lila in the car with us in her car seat, Lila waking up in her crib in the mornings, giving Lila a bath in her turtle shaped tub. She is with us every moment of everyday as she should be because she is our baby. The other life is how things really are, this life we never wanted or would have never wished on our worst enemies. This life that I cannot believe has become my own and I will never accept. I keep seeing these two lives in my everyday activities. I cannot escape this and this is when I get the most upset. Even now as I am sitting here typing on the computer, Mike is on the couch watching a movie and Lila should be in her bouncy seat sleeping in the room with us. That was the only scenario that should be happening for us. Not this. Not this life of loss, longing and questioning how this happened to us. Lila deserved better than this. -Jenny
Jenny and I went to the Pittsburgh Home and Garden Show this week. We went last year as well and we couldn't help but to compare the two visits. Last year, Jenny wasn't pregnant yet and we were so anxious that Jenny would be soon so that we could take the baby to events like this with us. Fast forward a year and we obviously have much different feelings. We still walked around and wondered what it would be like to have our baby here but this time any hope and joy that we had was gone. We've said this before but Lila would have made everything better. Lila would have been by far the cutest baby there, no question about it. One of the things I was looking forward to with Lila was posing her with very random things and embarrassing her. I would have strived in that role. I still took an embarrassing picture to give you all an idea of how I would be with Lila. - Mike
A few years ago I read a blog entry a woman from DC wrote about her father passing away. She said that she really had wanted something different to remember her Dad and so she had an image of his fingerprint made into a necklace for her to wear in his honor. I thought it was a unique idea and never really thought about it again until Lila was in the NICU. It suddenly became very important to me to have as many copies of her hand and footprints as we could get. She had the cutest little hands and feet, pretty big for her tiny self too. I mentioned this jewelry concept to my family and asked them to research what could be done for infants. My brother found a jewelry store in Pittsburgh that told him about a company that did this and gave him a pamphlet on it. All we had to do was use the special ink they gave us and get Lila's hand print and one foot print onto the paper. Then we would take the paper to a jewelry store and they could have it made into pendants for us. I never thought this would be something I would be doing or something I would want to have so badly. I got one of each and Mike got her footprint. Lila's grandparents and Uncle Dan all got one as well. We got the finished product a few days ago and it is so special. Our precious baby's feet and hands are the most beautiful we have ever seen. -Jenny
