20 years, 10 months, 21 days

It is the eve of Jacob's 12th birthday.  There is a single cupcake squirreled away in the kitchen.  In the morning, I'll light it and stand over Jake singing "happy birthday" to wake him up.  His dad took the day off work tomorrow so we can take him to a special dinner.  He will get gifts, and hopefully have a happy day.  I love this little man more than words can say.  So why do I feel so miserable to see him turn 12?  Why does it make my heart ache more than the natural amount a mother feels to see her baby growing up?


There will be a face missing at his birthday dinner. 


And, as soon as his special day is over, I won't be off and running to plan my other child's birthday, which is next month.


I did the math on a scrap of paper today.  She would be 20 years, 10 months, and 21 days old today.


I remember when she was born, how I had to remind myself to know her exact age at all times.  It wasn't something I was good at...I wasn't counting the passage of time, I was enraptured by her eyes, her smile, the smell of her skin. 


Now, there is nothing left to do but to mark time, and imagine who she would be and what she would be like if she were still here.  I had read that your child, once gone, continues to grow older in your mind, and dismissed the idea as ludicrous...until the day I talked to a college class of young people studying to be social workers.  I looked at their bright eyes, the stylish messy buns, the well-working brains bent over cellphones in all colors of the rainbow, and I could easily see my girl there amongst them.. a little older, a lot healthier.  She was just a seat over, bent over with laughter, ready to learn...stashing her phone when the teacher began class, maybe doodling in the margins of her notebook.  She was studious and serious because she knew something not everyone her age did.  She knew that to have a brain that worked and could learn with ease, to have a brain that worked for her, not against her, and wouldn't fold under daily living, let alone challenges was something not everyone had.  It was a privilege, and not to be squandered.  She was well now, with a thirst for learning, the same  natural born learner she'd been since she cuddled in my lap, goggling over board books.  She would not waste a single moment. 


To know this will never happen- is that acceptance?  Have I entered that stage of the grief process?  You don't have to be ok with your loss, from what I've read- you need only know the loss really did happen; it is your new reality; it is irreversible.  Acceptance means knowing for certain that your loved one is never coming back.


It has been 18 months since I saw her broken and bleeding, slumped and flattened on the road- thrown to the side like some discarded heap of broken bones and weeping flesh.  I think, if nothing else, I am no longer in denial.  I am far from where I was when I regarded her final resting place, filled in, an hour or so after the funeral luncheon.


Here's what that was like:


You don't realize you're in shock when you are, which is pretty much the definition, I suppose.  I remember watching them lower her into the ground.  When I came back, they'd filled in the hole the best they could.  I got out of the car, expecting I don't know what, only to buckle at the knees at that rectangle of freshly turned earth.  The flowers, in baskets and pots, held vigil in a ghastly row.  That's all there was.  My mind couldn't comprehend this most basic information:  casket, hole, dirt on top.
"That's it?  That's all?"  I remember thinking, in a wild panic.  From baby to young woman, I'd watched her grow and now I had nothing to feast my eyes upon but a fresh pile of dirt.


I wanted to scream up at the sky, but there weren't any screams left- they'd all been released at the graveside service.  I stood there, in the baking heat, feeling my mind falter as I overheard my family members holding a relatively normal conversation.


I glared at them, unnoticed.  Didn't they know this was a sacred place?  You weren't supposed to talk about food and flowers here.  You were supposed to talk to Cory.  Whisper.  You were supposed to wait silently, desperately hoping to catch a small sound or stirring from the ground that validated that this had all been a huge mistake.  She wasn't dead.  She was alive, and waiting to be pulled from her prematurely made grave. 


How on earth was I supposed to hear her over all that senseless chatter?  Everyone, for God's sake, shut up so I can hear my girl!