Beneath the Ice

The best way I can think of to describe the way I'm feeling is to have you imagine that you are walking across a frozen lake.  You walk cautiously, but continue to move forward and occasionally pause to breathe in the quiet beauty surrounding you.  Suddenly, the ice before you opens up and you find yourself falling through.  Before you realize what has happened, you are underwater and can do nothing but struggle to bring your head above the surface once again.  This is my attempt to get back to the surface.

Things have been pretty uneventful lately and I have found myself feeling almost at peace some days.  Yesterday, however, we were traveling to see family and about a mile from our destination, we found ourselves sitting at an intersection waiting for a funeral procession to pass.  I found myself quietly sobbing in the front seat as the hearse passed and I realized that all too soon, we would find ourselves following the car carrying our daughter.  Thankfully, the girls were occupied by a DVD and I had a short drive to pull myself back together, but I know by now that once I start crying, the tears will wait just below the surface until I finally deal with it.

So here I am and although I don't usually find myself in tears when I'm writing, I can't help but choke back the sobs.  It isn't that I had forgotten about the funeral or that I am in denial about our reality right now, but staring down the timeline for taking your child to the cemetery is painful in a way that I can not even describe. In all of the discussions and planning, I have been working so hard to handle the practical details that I haven't really let myself walk through what that day will actually look like.  This is why. I don't want to.  I don't want to walk that path more than once.  Ever.

Among the tears and pain right now, I also feel tiny little hiccups just above my left hip and what I assume is a little butt pushed firmly into my rib cage.  Maybe she hates it as much as I do when I cry and is offering her best distraction.   It's almost like that's her way of letting me know that, for now, she is still here with me.  I am grateful for those reminders of her life; I am grateful that she is such an active baby and frequently makes her presence known.  I am grateful that I've been blessed to have nine months with her and pray that she will be content to hiccup, wiggle, kick and punch right where she is for the next four weeks.  Because I will never actually be ready to say goodbye.