One Month

Eleanor would have been one month old today.  I cannot believe it has been a whole month but at the same time, my old self feels very far away.  I can hardly remember how it feels to not feel sad and when I think of happy memories, they feel so poignant.  I look back at the old versions of me and can't help but think, "That girl never saw this coming."  Irreverent is gone.  Content is gone.  But I hope one day they will be back.

I went to her site today and the flowers we left yesterday looked fresh and happy.  The weather was beautiful so I sat down for a while.  Eleanor is not at Fairview Memorial Gardens.  I know that.  But it's a really nice, peaceful place to remember and reach out to her.  I talked to her, noting the day.  I said I thought if she had stayed, we probably would have spent some time outside together today.  Told her I figured by now she would be a little bigger already, maybe out of some of her tiniest clothes and up a size in diapers.  That so many friends and relatives would have wanted to see pictures of her progress, so I would have had to put her in a really good outfit.  Today would have marked the halfway point of my maternity leave - something else I pointed out.

To the outside world I am sure I looked nuts - I was sitting there talking to myself after all.  But talking out loud felt better than just thinking the thoughts racing in my head.  It gave them a pace and rhythm, rather than the flood of jumbled mess that happens when I am silent.

I have never been someone who talked out loud to myself but I firmly intend to do it again.  Only time will tell if this is something I will do to help heal - or if this is the beginning of the mental break I have felt on the verge of since this happened.
We'll see...

Before I got up, I apologized to her.  I have done this before and I am not sure what I am sorry for.  Sorry she can't be here.  Sorry her earthly life amounted to 14 minutes of a fated fight to live. Sorry to my family and friends who'll never know her.  Sorry to Dan that this was to be his future when he married me. Sorry for myself.

I also told her she was a good girl.  Dan said this same thing to her at the funeral.  "You're a very good girl" he said over and over again.  I really liked that.  I like to think it would have been something he would have repeated to her through her life as she grew.  Maybe it would become something of a catchphrase around our house.  Maybe she would jokingly throw the words back at him when in trouble for something, pointing out to him that she was, in fact, a very good girl.

But instead we will have to settle for our eternally perfect girl who just wasn't made for this earth.