And a Craptastic New Year!

Yes, your eyes do not deceive you: those are indeed, "Merry Motherfucking Christmas!" cards. If only they sold Reindeer Roadkill stamps, I might've taken the plunge with these or some of my own making:

Hope your new year isn't nearly as shitty as our last!

Joy! (Not!)

Peace on Earth . . . at least, to everyone else but us.

From our family (minus one) to yours, hope your holidays aren't emotionally fraught

Here comes Santa Claus, and hey, is that a glass of bourbon in his hand? And why is he crying?

Baby's First Dead Christmas [photo card, of course. Hmm, which to use: Maddy alive on respirator, or Maddy recently deceased?]


Friends and Family:

Wow, can you believe 2007 is almost over? Time for the banal generic holiday message that informs you how ridiculously cute, intelligent, witty, well traveled, and dead our children are! Let's get started!

We were most blessed this year to welcome into our family our beautiful new daughter, Bella's little sister, Maddy. Who then up and died. Whoops! Looks like we guessed wrong on last year's holiday cards, eh? Our bad.

So, um, lessee, February-March-April-May-June-July-August-September-October
-November were pretty much spent crying, going to therapy, checking out antidepressants (they work! I did get out of bed! Just don't ask me to remember you or where you live or who YOUR kids are, because I don't remember any of that like I don't remember what I ate for breakfast), going to therapy, staring at a pile of hospital crap related to our dead daughter, crying some more, trying to lose baby weight without a baby (totally fun!), trying to socialize without feeling like the Deadbabymommy in the room, more therapy, blogging about dead daughter, wondering what to do with ashes of dead daughter. Oh, and in July we went to the beach for a week.

Bella continues to astound us. Despite the fact that her mother was completely emotionally checked out, she managed to become potty trained. And while other children are learning about, oh, seasons, animals, and manners, Bella mastered the subject of death! Her giftedness on the subject really knows no bounds. We can't wait until she surprises her teachers and school chums with the information that her sister is d-e-a-d, dead! She started school in fall, which I'm sure is as much a relief to her as it is to me, and I finally have time to exercise again and try and lose this fucking weight. (Don't get excited, I ramped up too quickly, blew my plantar fascia, and am only now losing the weight that I lost, and then gained back.) She is cute though. And alive!

Tash's job was trying extremely hard to remain upright, not let Bella stick her unattended fingers into light sockets, and not to turn into an alcoholic drug-addicted trash heap (so far so good! Phew!). Mr. ABF's work has been stressful, unsupportive, and chaotic and that's without having to grieve as well. Fingers crossed for a bonus, y'all!

We'd send you a picture of the family, but couldn't decide how to decorate Maddy's box of ashes or who would hold it, so we gave up -- use your imaginations.

Hope your year wasn't as shit-tacular, and as for 2008, we can only hope it doesn't get any worse.

Us.

[handwritten comments:] The pictures of your kids? Wow! They're so big! They totally look like they came home from the hospital! And grew up! And are still alive! And when you said "Happy and Healthy," you were being facetious, right?