100 pounds

It's Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.  Only for those of us who are living it, every day is Remembrance Day.
Not a day goes by that I don't think about her.

Not a day goes by that I don't miss her.

Most days, I can smile wistfully and remember the beauty she brought to my life.  And it's sad, but it's sweet too.  Like when monarch butterflies are your "symbol" for your angel, and it's monarch migration season, and you see 67 on a twenty minute walk.

But some days, like today, you break down into wracking sobs in the shower.


This grief, it's like carrying around a weight.  100 pounds.  At first, you are knocked over, and it's suffocating.  At first it crushes you.

But like anything, when you bear it long enough you start to adjust.  Muscles grow stronger.  Soon, you can walk around, carrying it like it's nothing.

But it still weighs 100 pounds.


It's been 10 years, 5 months, 1 week and 6 days since Cora was stillborn.  It's been 10 years, 5 months and 2 weeks since my doctor told me her heart was no longer beating and my world was changed forever.

It still hurts as badly today as it did then. It still weighs 100 pounds.  But somehow I have grown to bear it.  Some days I hardly even notice I'm carrying it.

But some days, like today, I look at it closely and I feel every ounce.