Just Another Tuesday

As I sat in our small group, I realized that today was over and Mike was in Long Beach. My stomach groweled. I spaced out, and although people talked, I glazed into Arie-land.

It's hard to undrstand and wrap my mind around her being gone. I do believe that she was here for a short time, but in another way, I feel that she wasn't here at all. I felt her kick, but I never swaddled her. I could see her legs and arms move, but never outside of me. It all seems so . . . weird. As though the last year didn't happen. Kind of like it was a real dream.

For the time she was alive, I dreampt of holding her, tickling her little toes, kissing her nose, and loving her all her life. I didn't realize, or even imagine, that I would be taking her home in a 5 inch marble urn. My thoughts of saving her first moments in pictures, and documenting her life on film are gone. I never got to share our excitement with our parents. We have video, but I was never able to share it with them.

My heart aches. It is now almost 3 months after that fateful day, and I still crumble. There are days I wake up and my cheeks are saturated with tears. No trigger. No warning. Just tears.

There is something so deep within me that yearns to hold her again. The moments I did, I was in such a different place. It scares me to grasp that I don't remember what it was like to hold her. One of my good friends blessed me with a Build-A-Bear that she filled with flaxseed to Arie's meager 5 lb. weight. The closest I get to holding my coveted daughter is snuggling up to a stuffed animal. Right now, all the love that should be pouring in to grimmacing through diapers, trying to get enough sleep, and planning how to visit friends around nap time, all vanishes into thin air. There is nowhere for my love to rest.

As the world moves on, my world circles. Everyone gets to continue their life, with their normal. I silently scream inside knowing that Arie will never again be here. I don't get to have "normal". However, I do hope for the day I get to see her again, smiling in the arms of her Daddy and running toward me. I hope for the day my tears are of joy and I hear "mommy" from her mouth.


I miss her. I miss my baby girl.