gone

It’s simple really.  Every single day I think of her.  Every minute that she isn’t immediately present in my mind she is just off in the darkened leafy shadows of the forest of my subconscious. Perhaps she is watching.  Perhaps she is waiting to be noticed.  Like a curious nymph in the woods who is going about her own business put drawn by curiosity to the human world, she gathers her flowers, sits with her butterflies, and wonders when she will be seen.  Some day she will be good at hiding.  Someday she will blend into the background.  Someday she will not be so easily noticed.  I don’t want her to blend into the dark leaves.  I don’t want her to melt into the background and go unseen.  I miss her already.  Everyday terribly.  I get so I don’t cry much anymore, maybe because crying doesn’t release the sadness.  So I try to recall her softly, so as not to frighten her away.  I try to look casually at her sitting among the butterflies so that she will stay and let me look just a little bit longer.  I don't want time to pass.  I don't want the world to move on.  I don't want to let her go softly into the darkness, because I need her so. 

I have considered how people ask the universe to take them first, to spare the other person from death.  The honorable thing would be to let them go because the real pain is found in the one's left behind.  The real torture and strength is in going on and living, still thinking and missing, loving and hurting everyday they're gone.  So, if the pain is in living, I'd rather live without them, than they without me. 

I’m changed now.  I don’t see exactly how just yet, but I can feel it.  My girls make me see what has been missed and I cherish the times we spend together even more.  I have more patience for them and less for other people’s “woe is me” stories.  Maybe that makes me mean.  But really… it’s hard to feel bad for someone who is complaining about something like how long the line at Tim Horton’s was when there are things like ashes in urns of babies who shouldn't be gone.  It’s a perspective thing.  Is it really so bad to have to wait for coffee?  I kind of think not so much.  But that’s just me. There are far worse things than waiting.