I find myself identifying so much with mothers of new rainbow babies. Jo Jo is, in a way, an instant rainbow baby. I had much less time than the other mothers before my rainbow baby came, but time is such a funny thing to loss moms. The time between the moment our children were gone and the present seems like an eternity, a stretch of time that cannot be measured by conventional means; months, days, hours. It is a timeless expanse of aching, with a beginning that leads to now. Everything in between is just a void.
So she is here and some days I feel so grateful for the joy she brings. And other days having her brings my grief to the surface even more vividly than when I was baby-less. She makes my life more wonderful and more confusing. My love for her grows and strangely, my love for my other daughter grows along with it. Therefore, my grief becomes fresher than ever before.
Now there is little Jo Jo, who even after three weeks I can’t imagine my life without. Can there really be some random strangers (so-called relatives) out there who have more claim on her than I do? Is blood truly thicker than love? In my bones, I feel that she belongs here. I feel like we are the family she was meant to have. But does that also mean that she, in turn, is the daughter I was meant to have? Isn’t that equivocal to saying “everything is meant to be”, a saying I hate? Does that imply that Avalon was “meant” to die? That her death was somehow destined? I can’t believe that. But if I can’t believe that she was meant to die, does that mean I don’t believe Jo Jo was meant to be my daughter?
It’s all so confusing, all so heart-wrenching. If you think about it too much you start to chase your own tail. The bottom line is, I was meant to have a daughter named Avalon. But Avalon did not survive, not because there was a reason, but just because she didn’t. And when she died, I put my name back on the foster care list, because I was also meant to have a daughter named Jo Jo. And perhaps this daughter, too, will leave me before (way before) I’m ready for her to go. Perhaps then I’ll be “meant” for something else.
In the end there is no God, there is no destiny, there is only ourselves, and the big wide universe that we will never understand.
Mother of All Things 
I hate “everything happens for reasons” and all the variations. Sometimes there’s no reason, good things and bad things just happen. I can’t give any answers, other than that Avalon was your daughter that you love very much, and Jo Jo is also your daughter who you love very much. Two sweet little girls, connected by you and your big heart.
Looking at it form a distanve jojo living with you seems more about creating a little good about two sad situations. avalon should have lived and JOjo should have lived wiht her parents but now those two things can’t be it’s great you’ve found eachother…..