One wise friend likened grief to a circle.
Before, in my life, i would have thought of it as a line. You know, that whole, "Time heals all wounds" adage. Yes.
And No.
For the most part, being almost 2 years down this road of grief (wow. i just caught my breath typing that. 2 years?), I like to think I'm doing pretty well. I now get out of bed before 1 p.m. I don't forget simple things like eating, brushing my hair, laundry for weeks on end. I don't tear up every time I pass the hospital (good thing too--makeup would be pointless since we moved only a block from that building). I'm doing pretty dang well, actually, thankyouverymuch.
But.
There's always a But, isn't there?
But, there are those mornings where I find myself in nearly that same place I was on November 1, 2008. It's slightly dreamlike. I'm awake, and yet this can't be happening. This can't be my life. Half of my children are ... dead?
Yeah. You didn't like reading that word.
I didn't like typing it.
It's a circle.
And so, when I hear Danny cry, I have to really think twice about if it is a real baby or a phantom cry. I had to ignore the cries I heard for so long, and now they are real. It's a strange game for my head. And honestly, I almost always hesitate. What I wouldn't give for the spring I had in my step when Morris cried as a newborn. I was so confident he was real.
When I'm holding Mo on one side and Danny on the other, my arms look full. It's deceiving. There is a painful empty space in the middle.
It's a circle.
When I hear of another mother with empty arms--who feels wildly in love with a baby she cannot hold and whose milk is coming in and who doesn't know how to answer the question, "How many children do you have?", and who hears the cries in the night of a baby who is not there---
when I hear of that mother-- it takes me back and I feel it all. A little less sting, yes. But just as vivid as the day they were born and the day they died.
It's a circle.
