Hello/Goodbye

The books came in for the grandmas today.  The only memories they will ever have of their granddaughter, both their first.  Again, I feel like a failure.  I built up so many hopes, and they came crashing down with her death before birth. 

I still kind of float through the days.  I do things, I tell myself I'm doing them for a purpose or reason, but really nothing holds any significance anymore.  I follow recipes and make new meals, because it takes up more time than making the same old thing and I wonder if new tastes will spark something in me.  It hasn't - food still tastes like ash in my mouth, and it takes effort to chew and choke down meals.  I finish projects, or start new ones, to have something to occupy my hands.  My mind is never unoccupied - there is always Coraline, and my regrets and anger and frustration and pain and sorrow.

I designed a tattoo to honor her.  Something I can wear permanently and see whenever I need to.  A dragonfly with her name as the body.  I need it.  Pain doesn't register, I doubt I'll even really feel it.  Even when I've jumped on the bike, after a lifetime of non-exercise and sedentary work, my legs ache for a few minutes, then it disappears.  It doesn't occur to me anymore - I get lost in my thoughts and the memory of the pain, so I feel nothing.  I don't know if that's a good or bad thing.

There is nothing that can ever compare to this loss.  No words can heal my broken heart, no comforting gestures will ever ease my over-burdened mind of its guilt.  The guilt... the guilt will not go away.  I should have died instead.  Coraline should be safe at home in her crib with her daddy and brother, being cared for through tears.  I've grown and had my time - I've aged and become cynical and jaded.  She was perfect and untarnished and beautiful and innocent.  She should have life.  Matt should have his daughter, the perfect copy of him, a legacy and testament of his love - instead of a wife who couldn't give him her.  Parker should have his sister, someone to teach and share with, to protect and care for, instead of a broken mother who can barely keep it together in front of him.

I wander through the days, purposeless and lost.  They blend together - I don't even know what day of the week it is most of the time.  I need structure, but I'm terrified to go back to work.  I don't want that daily grind for the sake of staying busy.  I don't do anything meaningful with my life.  I should probably change that.  Part of me is still scared and feels like a child, hiding under my covers while life goes on around me and I remain willfully ignorant.  Another part of me thinks "I've had to deal with this, nothing else compares in the grand scheme of things."  And that's pretty much true, too.  Nothing else will ever touch this, so why am I so frightened of the future and what it could bring?

Because now I've experienced death.  Not just seen it, held it, and called it by name - it happened inside of me.  I was alive, my baby girl died inside me.  It's a paradox no one should ever have to experience - to be both living and dead, to experience the miracle of birth and death in the same swoop.  To enter the delivery ward and call a funeral home.  To meet and say goodbye in the same breath.  NO ONE should have to face that.