Two Years

Two years now.

Two years. Does the hurt ever really go away? No. It stays away longer, rests for a while, and then floods anew. Small things set it off...like a day, a memory, the grief of someone else.

Sometimes I really wonder what exactly I'm grieving for. It isn't for an actual person whom I've met..."she" was never born. It isn't necessarily for a baby that I saw...there were no ultrasounds of Abiah.

I grieve for two things. I grieve for the dream that was lost, for the hope that was taken, for the promise unfulfilled here on Earth. And I also grieve for the girl I was, for the way I was before the dark set in. For the joy that I know I will never have again. The joy that lasted for eight sweet days before the dark. That unassuming, baby-will-come joy, the big-blossomed, life-is-here joy. Because the reality has set in that with life comes the certainty of death...no matter how soon.

Two years. Three pregnancies. One baby here. Now.

I don't love Abiah (or Ronan) less for not being Abby or for not knowing them as long. I don't love Abby less because she was carried, birthed, and will live with a more aware mama. I love them differently. I know them differently. And I do find great joy both in knowing that my children are in Heaven and in living here with Abby.

But that initial hurt? That loss? It lingers. It's powerful. It's a reminder, though, that my home is not here.

"When God takes someone from us, it is always for a
good reason. When the sheep have grazed and thinned the grass
in the lower regions, the shepherd will take a little lamb in
his arms, carry it up the mountain where the grass is
green, lay it down, and soon the other sheep will follow.

Every now and then our Lord takes a lamb from the parched field
of a family up to those Heavenly Green Pastures, that the rest
of the family may keep their eyes on their true home and follow through."

--Fulton Sheen