JANUARY 2011
I ordered Vivian’s 2nd birthday cake today. While I was giving the bakery instructions on the butter cream icing and just what size I wanted the ladybug (Viv’s pet name) the woman on the phone asked me what I wanted written across the cake. Instinctively I replied, “Our Little Lady is 2!” Then I remembered. “Wait,” I choked, “Please change that” my voice now almost a whisper. “It should read ‘My Little Lady is 2!’ It’s just me.”
I live in a world of, “we, us, and our” It’s extremely difficult to be “just me” in my circle of friends and family. I am the third wheel. The odd man out. Partnerless. Alone. Table for one.
Sometimes, after I put my daughters to bed I pad down the hall to my boys’ old room. I have to keep their door closed, as it’s a Pandora’s Box of emotion and memory in there. However, every once in a while, when the aching for them simply becomes too much to shoulder, I will go in, sit on the edge of the bed and wait for the tears that always come.
I glance at their artwork and photographs. I see their calendars that are now four months behind and look around the room at toys that were once played with daily and now have a fine film of dust. I can’t bring myself to dismantle this room. I am simply not ready. I pick up Owen’s pillow. It still smells like him. Like Johnson’s baby shampoo and sleep. When I married his father he was 18 months old. He will be seven next month. A flood of emotion overtakes me.
There is a hole in my heart so black and so deep I don’t know how or if I will ever repair it.
I find it interesting that no one has commented on this blog. Because to me this is the most raw, powerful thing you have written here (and that is saying a lot).
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