October 7, 2010

the frightful symmetry of numbers

Ailis Evelyn, today it has been 3 years, 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days since we said goodbye. Noah Griffin, it has been 1 year, 1 month, and 1 week since we said goodbye. It is my hope, however, that even though time is passing here, for you everything has been suspended, and when my turn comes to finally leave this life, we will walk into heaven together, in the space between one breath and another, as if we were never parted at all...

I don't know why I'm so sensitive to patterns and numbers. I don't know why on some days, the dead are simply dead, and life goes on, but on others... On others I look at the time ticking by or the calendar's date and I feel like I'm breathing glass, because this is all wrong; it is all so very wrong, the way I have so much free time during the week, and all my clothes are neat and unstained, and there are no crayon marks on the wall, no toys spread on the floor. All my laundry is just mine, and I swear out loud (especially when I'm tired), and if I want to eat ice cream for dinner I can. And this is all wrong, because I'm a mother of two, and that's not at all how things would be if my kids were here.

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I feel like a bad mom sometimes, when I am able to focus on a project for hours at a time. When I say yes to extra shifts at work. I feel like I'm not paying enough attention to them. In the back of my mind, I feel guilty. But they're not here, to pay attention to. They're not here to change or grow, to be taught new things or marveled over. They don't need me anymore. And therein lies the problem, doesn't it?

I'm 26 years old. I have two beautiful children; they're just not here right now. They're never going to be here, so you needn't wait around to meet them. I'm not actually crazy, I swear! Or maybe I am, a little; just not dangerously so.

I can tell you one thing: This is not at all how I imagined my life would be.

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