It just happened. And yet my husband just said 2 weeks to someone. Not just someone, the funeral home coordinator. I shake my head because it was minutes ago. Not days turning into weeks. Counting up to 2 since then, instead of down, the last 4 weeks before arrival. We're sitting in a small room in a funeral home being asked questions about identifying the body. And would we like to witness the cremation of our daughter. Our daughter who never got to open her eyes and look at her mother. We should be doing hard things like staying up all night, not being at a funeral home.
The world around me looks familiar, but different. I sit in the car being driven between places like a funeral home, therapy, and the doctors. I'm just an emptiness being moved from place to place because this is what happens. Someone dies, and you follow a standard routine. Doesn't matter if that person is 89 or a baby. I thought my grandpa was young to lose at 72. Then I thought it was tragic to lose at sister at 28, to live out her life as a waste. But losing someone who you knew, you grew inside of you, who you held but didn't get to love, thats an indescribable pain.
I’ve heard grief is measured as before and after. But I already had a before and after I was working through. Anna was supposed to BE my after. This isn't fair. Instead my shattered heart that I thought could not be more broken, that I was slowly mending after 14 months of grieving, turned to dust. Smaller than the fragments I had become used to. It almost feels like nothing anymore. Its reduced to the ashes that my daughters body now is.
Sometimes wonder if she ever existed. Kicking one minute. Gone the next. How is that possible? It must have never been. That’s the only thing that makes sense, because none of this makes sense. So my mind tries to protect itself. It’s still in shock 2 weeks later. Still trying to wrap itself around a life that’s missing.
with love, lissa