Today it Got to Me

As a general rule, I manage to keep my emotion in check. I can get through most days without tears and if I don't they usually fall while I'm in the car alone and can wipe them away before someone notices. Not today.

I was rearranging furniture and went to put something in Audrey's room when I decided to look in the box of keepsakes that are in her crib. I sat in her rocker with her little angel urn in my lap and read the words from so many people who sent their wishes when she was born (I say born because I hate to always refer to that day as the day she died. I really hate that). As I reread the notes and cards and traced her little footprints with my fingers, the tears fell and still fall. I smelled the little outfit she wore trying to find some memory of her there, just a little breath of that new baby smell, but it's gone. Gone like my hopes for her future and her happiness. Gone like the dreams I had for her and the smile I'll never see. It's all gone. My love for her will never be gone, but it seems she did take a big piece of my heart with her.

Some have told me that she's an angel watching out for us. They we're lucky to have her up there on our side. It's funny how I don't feel very lucky. I feel sad and empty. I feel hurt and angry. I feel a lot of things and "lucky" is not one of them. I feel ripped off. I feel like all of us were robbed of the chance to know her and for her to know us and that feels very unfair. I've had my share of pain in my life, even before losing my daughter. I didn't need to lose her to know that life is unfair. I already got that.

So today I sat in my daughter's empty room with her sister playing at my feet and occasionally looking up to say "What's the matter Mommy" or "It's okay Mommy" while patting me on the foot and cried so hard I could hardly breathe. I want my daughter back. I want to hold her and feel her and hear her breathe. I want to watch her sleep and hear her cry, I want you kiss her eyelashes and nurse her to sleep. I hate to have to feel this. I miss my baby.

Maybe all of the talk and work to try and conceive her brother or sister has dredged all of this up. I don't really know. Maybe sometimes you just have to feel the pain. I don't know, but today I felt it. Today I feel it like it was the first day, not six months later.