Missing

It's been nearly 3 and a half years. Gabbie has become a part of the walls of my brain. All thoughts are infused with her loss. Not in a horribly sad way, but more like a lens through which I see things. I think a lot about my reaction to matters, especially with the girls and D.   Is my reaction to stress,  to them,  to life,  one that I want to convey?  I'm still quite snippy.   I see this like I'm standing above myself and I say something snippy and then it's too late to retract it.   Those moments come and I feel guilty but haven't figured out how to stop them before I say it. I find I am most snippy when I am tired, rushed or stressed. Perhaps it's because then I have the least patience. 

I still live with a terrible sense of guilt. Today I should be walking in the WNYPBN'S annual Walk to Remember.   I didn't. Instead I stayed home. I finished the first book I've read in a very long time.  I napped when the baby napped.   For hours.   I cried.   I cried when D was home because I felt guilty for not walking for her,  and I cried when he left and I had put the baby down for her nap.   It was for the same reason--- for guilt, but also for sadness.  She'd be 3 and half.   It's been a long time since I'd considered what she'd look like or be like.   Now that Evie's getting older and beginning to talk, I realize how much I've missed of Gabbie.  She'd be walking and talking and have favorite foods,  and a style. She'd have favorite cartoons and... and none of it matters.   And life is not that. And today,  I cried because I have been feeling guilty for so long and I still don't know why.   I can't explain the guilt.   I didn't kill her.   I didn't do anything so that she'd be sick.  And yet still I feel guilt about her not being here.   And I know that this is so irrational. I'm angry at myself for feeling guilty for not walking and I feel guilty that I'm angry. I don't cry or wallow in her absence often anymore. But today, I allowed myself the deep sobbing cry that hurts your heart, alone on my pillow while the baby slept and D was at the land and the wind blew the trees into beautiful fall colored shimmers outside the window.   It didn't help but it was necessary. I think I'd let the saddness fester for too long. I'd go visit her rock at the Botanical Gardens,  but going any where isn't necessary. I know she isn't anywhere but right here. Her bear, her spirit,  is here.  It's all I have of her and it'll always (and never) have to be enough.