It's been nearly 4 months since last I posted. Time has continued on with work and sickness and busy schedules of dance and choral concerts for the girls. In those 4 months the girls have grown, obviously most notably, Evie. As this month begins to proceed it marks the 3rd full year without Gabbie. Sky just tok her babysitting course, Gracie turns 5 and soon after Evie will be a year. How? How has life proceeded on thusly with years passing and grief waning? So how does it feel now in the third year?
Grief is like a teething baby on a hip: so heavy to hold but impossible to put down. Sometimes in exhaustion it rests a weary head on your shoulder and gently drifts to sleep quietly but the weight of sleep drapes over her, making her heavier to bear and even more impossible still to put to rest because you'll wake her if you try. Grief is like that heavy, sleep-laden baby: quietly resting but unable to be put down for fear of waking it. Grief is sometimes invisible, unnoticed just like teething. Sometimes through teething, she is pleasant and smiling, playing gently and sweetly the teething is not noticeable, no rose cheeks nor gnawing jaw. Grief is sometimes just like this, dormant in its pain. But then, then in a midnight waking, it sneaks back in and aches, with frequent reminders of the pain that steal away again after a time. Occasionally, grief, like a teething baby, needs to be cuddled, held close to your heart so you can wrap your arms around it and sooth it. Other times it just wants, needs to be let free, to gnaw, to chew, to grip something and hold it painfully tight because the pressure of it on the inside needs to be set free but yet it cannot be liberated. This is grief.
In less than 8 days she will be gone for 3 years. I sometimes wonder if I remember her face for what it was or because of the pictures we have of her. I'm afraid, or saddened maybe, that I might somehow remember falsely her face--- perhaps less or more full than it was, or her chubby hands with their perfect nails that had already began to darken from lack of air, or how her bow lips tilted slightly downward. She was from me. I should remember her face without a picture, but the guilt of not remembering precisely though perhaps a bit unrealistic is a real guilt. No I don't abuse myself for it, but if I were not to remember then who would?
I didn't bring the girls with me on my commute to work these last two mornings because of illness at the babysitter's house. The absences of the two was deafening. I thought of how I used to cry in the car on my way to work those first few weeks I returned to work after losing her, noting how different it would have been and so much more difficult with an infant to prep everyone for the day. It disturbed me to think how easily routines change when missing a vital component of one. Routines seem to be the glue that keeps me together much of the time. When I'm thrown off by hurrying, or chaos it stresses me out. I can't wait to pick up my teething baby (and her crazy sweet sister) and return to routines, teething and cuddles and crying and all.
