There was a time when I was pregnant that I was worried about Saki. She had been throwing up non-stop for a few days, and she seemed exhausted and unhappy. Your uncle Jackson* was visiting then. He wanted to drive to see your Aunt Alexis, but I was worried about leaving Saki alone. The vet hadn’t been able to find anything definitely wrong with her, but even after tests and injections of fluids, she didn’t seem like a very happy cat. I was worried. I thought I might lose her. I remember laying in bed with her after Jonathan had left for Alexis’ house. As sick as she felt, she still loved to cuddle. I held her and we watched TV and I started to cry. I know cats don’t live forever and she is already older and that one day I will have to say goodbye, but I wasn’t ready for it to be that day. I wasn’t ready to let her go. And then she got better. Maybe it was just a bug? Today, she is her happy healthy self again. I know that one day I will lose her, but for today, I hold her and love her, and cuddle with her and Amy Anne. They are my comfort. I reach for them in the morning when I wish I could reach for you.
I say I miss you but that doesn’t even cover it. Sometimes you feel like a dream. Sometimes it feels like I was never pregnant at all, that I just hit fast forward and life resumed unchanged. You are so far gone from me. I touch the things you never got to touch, looking for echoes of fingertips that never got to feel. You are at once so real and also an incomplete memory.
I went back to work this week. I was as ready as I’m never going to be. I put your pictures up on my wall. It’s scary. People may judge you, judge me. The old me would incite a confrontation, force an argument to make an angry statement. Today I just want to love. I share my vulnerabilities. I tell the truth–I tell people I’m not okay, that I miss you so much I need to see your face to remember you were real.
Life is coming back to me. I hate it, it makes me feel disloyal to you. I hate feeling my mind engage, hate losing my focus on everything about you. I’m scared I’m going to lose you all over again, scared I’m going to forget how your loss is burned so vividly into my mind. I think I could never forget you, but not that long ago, I thought I would never get out of bed. You’re still missing. I’m still empty, scared, heartbroken and missing you.
I miss you so much.
~
* Names have been changed to protect privacy.
