Gasping For Air

There are days that I really do feel like I will drown. After almost 6 years, that hasn't gone away. The times when the loss of our daughter is so real that time stands still.
All Sophia wants to do is play with other kids. And when it's time to go home, she doesn't want to go. And tonight she said, "All I want to do is play with my sister." Because in her eyes, everyone else has a brother or a sister. All of her friends have someone to play with. How do I explain to my 4 year old that the one thing she really wants, we can't give her?

Walk

I'm sitting outside of the Share Walk. I'm in the parking lot of a funeral home, and I feel like I just ran away from a funeral. All week I've been unsure if I would attend the program this year. It looks like I won't. I've been weak and unstable this week. Its starting, the Holidays Without Her. October starts it and it doesn't end until mid-march. I am unable to stay here with all of these families who are also missing their babies. I feel like an outsider, an imposter, and I don't know why. Why can't I belong to this amazing group? Maybe it would help. But I'm sitting in the parking lot instead.

I wish I could still write. I wish I could draw or paint. I wish I had some way of getting this stuff out of my head so I could think clearly. I wish I had a way of expressing and remembering.

I feel like I spend a lot of time tip toeing around myself and my feelings. Because I know how crazy I can be and I know how delicate my everyday sanity is. An article about taking pictures of a stillborn baby makes me shake. We didn't take enough pictures. I wanted more, I just wasn't strong enough to say please.

Birth Plan

I was just thinking about how much time I spent writing up a birth plan when I was pregnant with Charlotte. How we paid for and went to classes on pregnancy and birth. And how we didn't bother when I was pregnant with Sophia because we knew it was out of our hands. I think about that sometimes, about how sad it is.

Whether

It doesn't matter if its because the sky is on fire, or because the blue moon has disappeared. No matter the weather, I am thinking of you.

Can't Not Think

Charlotte, my baby girl. My tiny princess. I know it's not your birthday, but I can't stop thinking about you and I had to write it down. This would have been a big week for you. You would be starting Kindergarten. We would have walked you to school, right up to your classroom. Kisses for mommy and daddy, giggles and hugs for Sophia. What clothes would you have worn? What size shoes would you be wearing? I can almost picture you sitting at a tiny desk, listening to your teacher, big, intelligent eyes taking in everything around you. Almost. We were almost there, but instead you were taken away with the wind. Gone in an instant that has turned into an eternity.
Will it always be like this? My lists of what should be, what could have been? You sister is the most amazing thing in the world, but she isn't you. She is not, has never been, a replacement for our little star. I can watch her grow up, see into her eyes, hear her laughter. And I enjoy it. I revel in it. But I cannot help but wonder how similar you two would be. How different. Sophia loves her preschool. She gets to play with other kids, and it reminds me how lonely she is. She talks about you all the time. I hope you know that. I hope you can visit her dreams. I wish she could know you like we did. I wish I knew how to handle having two daughters but only being able to raise one at a time. I hope I never make her feel set aside, I hope she never struggles with being an only. Because I don't think she is an only, but it's so hard to explain that to people when they ask.
I'm sorry that I leave you alone. That I've stopped talking to you and I don't visit your headstone. I feel like you're nowhere and I am struggling with that. I am struggling to believe. I am struggling to keep walking in the right direction, when most days, I don't know up from down. I struggle to be a good mom, when I feel like i'm being punished for losing you. By losing you. I don't know what to believe.