Reaching...

              I posted a status update about messages or signs from loved ones in Heaven, to let us know they are there.  My friend Christina commented that she knows they respond to questions spoken out loud.  Throughout the day on Monday I felt somehow I’d been given signs.  I wrote about it in blog post about Angels and butterflies.  She said if I asked a question I’d be given an answer, but what kind of question do you ask that’s worthy of an angel?

                So I sat on my bed at 9:30 at night on Monday, and I looked at Gabbie’s bear.  “How do I know you’re there?” I asked aloud.  I didn’t expect a response.  Pulling the blanket over me, I turned out the light and fell asleep.  10 minutes into being out cold, (so just before 10) Derek came into the room with the computer and showed me the screen.  We’d just received an offer on our house.   Our realtor said it just came in. 

                Maybe this isn’t a sign at all. But who makes an offer on a house at 10 o’clock at night? Maybe it is a sign.  Gabbie was born just before 10 pm.  I asked her how I’d know.  Maybe I’m reaching.  Maybe I just want it to be a sign.  Maybe I just want it to be her so bad to know she’s close to me.  I’m educated.  I know the definition of random, coincidence and variability.  But maybe…?

                Part of me is sad that I am trying for a connection to her.  Can’t I just accept that she is gone? The answer to that is no.  My baby should not be just “gone.”  Gone from here?  Gone from me?  Forever?  To never hold or hug or see?  I want her close.  So I reach. 

                My friend Allison tells me to stop questioning that she's reaching out to me and just accept that she is. 

                I got the mail today.  A package from the hospital arrived; it was a “Certificate of Life” for Gabraella Joy Swader.  NYS doesn’t count her as having life unless she takes a breath outside the womb.  But she was alive to me.  She moved, had a heartbeat, blinked, hiccupped, sucked her thumb, kicked, so who gives a shit that it wasn’t outside the womb.  Her “Certificate of Life” is the closest to a birth certificate I’ll ever get. But I birthed her.  I have the scar to prove it.  I have the scar across my body and the one across my heart to prove she’s gone too.  “It’s just a paper,” said Derek, “It’s just a paper.”  He’s right, I know. But it’s more than a paper too.  If I’d had her the day before she would have breathed and then she would have been alive? A day sooner? Given a birth certificate?

                I hope she still has “Life” and is near me, somewhere in this universe that gives and then takes away.  And so I reach.