On Your Birthdate, Abigail
Daddy and I went to see your grave tonight after picking up some supplies for the rainbow cake that I promised you I would make for your birthday. It smells wondrous outside and there is a lightening storm, crowning the mountains in the brightest of silhouettes. You would have wanted to sit out on the balcony to watch. You loved the rain and the thunder. It did not go amiss that you were born under these same circumstances, a chilly late spring storm. As we drove home, I thought about the drive home from the hospital, two days after you were born. Daddy was behind the wheel of my big old green Volvo wagon, the car you loved with the “fuzzy warm seats”. We were so nervous on the road…I think your dad drove 15 miles per hour the whole way home. We were so scared and so excited and so full of love. Tonight we were just scared.
I’m sitting here…thinking of what I should write to you and the words are there but the grief seems to be drowning them. Tomorrow at 3:15 am you would have turned 14. I can’t bring myself to say Happy Birthday, because it isn’t a happy day and birthdays seem to imply a progression, but you Abigail are forever 13. Forever. There will be no first date, no drivers license, no high school graduation. Even though it wouldn’t surprise me even one bit to find you in your room, listening to your iPod…the fact that these events will never happen is still not within my realm of comprehension. Confronting them is terrifying and gut wrenching.
I know that in time I need to focus on cherishing every minute of the 13 years we spent together, but right now all I can do is suffer the deepest grief over those things you will never experience. I find myself thinking about how I will never hold or spoil your children and it just kills me. It’s a precarious balance right now. I know that I need to dig deep Abigail and sometimes I don’t have the strength to do that. For the first time in my life…I don’t have the strength. I miss you so profoundly that the desire to smell your hair threatens to make me go crazy.
You know that crazy sign I keep looking for? I can’t help but to think that the rain and thunder are you speaking to me in the only way you can now. I’ve decided that there is no harm in believing in hope…reunion….eternity. I will see you again my pretty girl, whether it’s in my dreams…in your room, in your pictures your presence is always in my heart. Always. That doesn’t go away. I love you and think about you every second of every day. That doesn’t go away either.
I don’t know what the morning will bring, but then again, I never did.
Love you, Catina.
I lost my daughter over 15 years ago, and I still feel these same things.
Your sweet little girl is everywhere, all the time. I hope you can find some small comfort in that.
“I don’t know what the morning will bring, but then again, I never did.” Nope. No one ever does, do they. I’m just sorry that you have to go through this particular version of not knowing. It sucks. No two ways about that. But I was really touched reading this, I felt like Abigail really could *hear* and know it, which of course I don’t know for sure, but choose to believe she can. Much love to you — you have been on my mind the past couple of days, and while I don’t visit here that often, I have been thinking about you, now that it is the time when a lot of the phone calls die off and a new kind of “normal,” whatever that is, tries to establish itself. And then there are things like this birthday which seem to derail things all over again… Just know that I read in this a mom who is being strong, even though she questions that strength. Sometimes “strong” is not how people usually think it looks, eh?
Happy Birthday, Abigail.
I am here everyday checking to see how your doing.