Bringing Her Home

Today is a bittersweet day, mostly bitter.  I called the funeral home who told me Coraline had arrived and we could come pick her up.  Never having planned a cremation before, I didn’t know what to expect.  Matt and I planned our day around picking her up, and the pictures from NILMDTS.  I was okay at the funeral home, even signed the receipt for her – she came home in a small plastic box about the size of an electric pencil sharpener, her name stamped on the side, with a certificate of cremation if we ever decide to inter her at a cemetery.  I held the bag containing her plastic urn and walked outside, then fell apart.  Matt and I sat in the car as I kept telling her over and over again how sorry I was, and Matt kept trying to tell me it wasn’t my fault and I didn’t need to apologize.  But to her I do, I will apologize every day.

               
Coraline, I’m so sorry you never got a chance to enjoy this world.  I’m sorry you never got to meet your big brother, who was waiting anxiously for you.  I’m sorry you were laid to rest not in the crib we lovingly prepared for you, but in a jewelry box that should have held your first hair ribbons and trinkets.  I’m sorry no one ever heard you laugh or cry.  I’m sorry your daddy only had one opportunity to hold you, and now just has a memory.  I’m sorry your heart stopped, and I can’t explain why.  I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to bring you into this world alive.

               
We did get to pick up her pictures from NILMDTS today, which was heartbreaking (again) to see, but I’m so glad I can see her and show others how beautiful she was.  It was very hard to relive that, seeing the absolute anguish on my own face, the concern on my husband’s.  Her hands & fingers were so long, like her feet, completely her daddy’s.  She even had his ears.