Reminders

There it hangs, oh so innocently, catching my eye and sending my heart spiraling into my stomach.  As I go through Riley's closet and pack away her summer clothes, thinking vainly that I will save them for a future child, and make room for her new fall ones.  There it hangs in the back of the closet.  I had forgotten about it.  A t-shirt that says, "I'm the big sister".  The t-shirt that my sister found by accident and knew I was pregnant before I even told her.  The t-shirt Riley wore under a jacket until we took the jacket off and waited for Jason's parents to notice and surprise them with our news.  The t-shirt that meant we were having another baby and Riley would soon be a big sister. 

These reminders are everywhere, sneaking up on me when I least expect them to.  Like the bracelet that I got Riley that says "big sister", like the maternity jeans I thought I had packed away but find under a pile of clothes, like the gift still wrapped up from Christmas last year that contains new decorations for Riley's big girl room we would need to move her into to make room in the nursery for the baby.  I came home from the hospital and yanked it from under the tree and threw it in a closet hoping to never see it again.  But it too snuck up on me one day. Like the intersection of 143rd and Black Bob Road.  I try to avoid it, but every now and then I forget and I accidentally drive by the funeral home where I sat in an office waiting for them to bring me the remains of my baby.  I avoided that place like the plague until the day we received the sad news that Jason's grandma had passed away and her visitation was to be held at the same funeral home.  I couldn't not be there for my husband for that.  So I went.  And as I stood there amongst the mourners, I was very newly pregnant.  I didn't even know it yet.  And it disappeared almost as quickly as it came. We were going to name that one Elinor if it had been a girl...after Grandma.  

How do I live in a world full of reminders?  Maybe I try to see them all as proof.  Proof that little lives once existed. Proof that these babies were real and loved. The initial reaction is always the same, my heart drops and I feel sad, longing for what could have been.  But then I tell myself that these reminders make them real.  And then I move forward, packing away little summer clothes and little t-shirts that announce to the world a baby is on the way and I save them, along with all my hopes and dreams and prayers...just in case.

I love you always and forever and no matter what.