Birthdays and time

Tomorrow is Gracie’s birthday party. My princess turns 3 and is so excited.  I however am sad.  Tonight she doesn’t wear diapers, she’s in pull-ups.  Tonight it’s as though she’s aged more than years and for each year she seemingly aged, my soul aged decades.  

Tomorrow, she and only she will blow out candles on a birthday cake.  She will not fight for the spotlight with her one year old sister because her one year old sister isn’t one.  Her one year old sister will not be seen around the table, she will not have her own mush cake to eat.  She will not toddle around the house or steal hearts with a gummy smile.  Gabbie died.  She died.  Her heart stopped.  She died a year ago in 6 days before she even took a breath, and I sit here in streaming tears wishing with every fiber of my being that I were taking pictures tonight of the two of them and not just my princess with a bear.  I sit and cry and wish.  I wish I didn’t care about butterflies, or rainbow babies, or teddy bears.  I wish I had her and was mediating battles between three spoiled girls instead of two.  I wish I had more wrinkles from less sleep and late nights with baby tears instead of late nights with soggy pillows and broken hearts.  I do not know if it will get easier after the first year.  I know that nothing in my life could have prepared me for what this last year brought, and that I still reach, and ache for her.  Without a doubt, the heaviest thing a person could ever hold is baby whose heart no longer beats.  I wonder if this weight will stay forever.  I am guessing that the weight within my heart is simply her, her spirit stays within me, connected to me, and I am the ballast that holds her here.  Perhaps that is why I feel so heavy, perhaps that is why sorrow for an angel baby weighs so heavily on a heart. 

I can honestly say I do not know how a year has passed.  The tears are perhaps less, but my heart is still broken. 

But Time

You may think me strong, but I am not

I exhale the sorrow like air

But time does not wait for breath

You may think me brave but I am not

I’d curl up in covers and not come out

But time does not halt for cowards

You may think me sad but I am not

I am torn and shattered and beaten

But time does not care for hearts

You may think me healed but I am not

I am forever broken

But time does not stop for broken souls

(A chance meeting)

In cold rain and wind

You did not flutter by me

My sweet butterfly