in the quiet

it was the way he said it. the way it rolled off of his tongue, so matter of fact..i somehow heard it with different ears, with a different perspective....

i told him that the house, even with a busy 3 yr old, seemed oddly quiet. that all the chaos i hear in the backgrounds when i call at my friends houses who have more than one kid makes our house seem so still and quiet. we both agreed that we were both looking forward to the juggling of two, the double-team effort, the sharing midnight feedings and comforting cries in the night...rocking her gently and quietly in the big rocking chair in the dark stillness at 3am...looking forward to the chaos of 3 yr old tantrums and infant cries competing over one another for our attention....liam is getting so big, he is getting so independent...we were looking forward to having our arms full again with a baby and nurturing a little one whose every single need is met through us...even with liam playing with his cars on the floor yesterday, it was eerily quiet in the house.

i told ian about my observation of the quietness and i asked with buckets of tears pouring down my face..."why does it have to be so quiet? why don't we get to have her here? why was she taken from us?"

"she died, honey. she died," he said gently.

that's all he said. he wasn't being mean or insensitive. he was being matter of fact and reminding me that it was just that simple. she died.

i heard that phrase do differently for some reason that it took my breath away and i started to sob uncontrollably...like liam does when he is hurt or is scared...she did die. she was once alive and then she died. for someone to die though, they must have been alive. common sense, i know. but for me, it was a weird reality to look at. we have called it many things and disguised it so carefully at times to avoid this reality..."she was stillborn", " we lost her", "when everything happened", "after that horrible day..." we have even mentioned many times the word death and dying. but somehow when ian told me she died, it was like i was hearing the doctor tell me all over again that she was gone. she died. it's like i lost her again.

the image of her being dead was pushed up against the other image of her in my mind. the one of her growing inside of me, jumping and kicking, tossing and turning, her little fingers and hair and eyes and brain forming...the sight of her dancing about on all the ultrasounds....she was so whole and so perfect inside of me...she was right on track with where she was supposed to be...she was so alive in me. and then she went to sleep. the idea of her falling asleep inside my own body and not even knowing it...it's a combination of both horror and peacefulness. juxtaposed next to each other happening at the same time. she fell asleep. she died.

my arms ache for her terribly since then, since i heard him say to me, "she died." i want to have more time with her and look at her again and try and memorize her face and her little fingers more...i want to lay with her and sing to her and talk to her....i want her to be alive WITH me, not just for that time she was inside me. i feel so robbed. i feel so much like something is missing in our home. something is missing in our lives now. there is such a huge void, a huge sydney-shaped hole that is so obvious to us but others are already forgetting about. we can't walk around too much without tripping over it, the hole. it is so tempting to try and fill it with other things but they never work, it never satisfies.

sometimes i wish we lived back in the day where people outwardly mourned with their appearance and clothing....it was commonplace....the ripped cloths or the traditional black veil...at least that way people would know i am dying inside.. at least if people could see my veil they would understand...they would be more compassionate and graceful...if this were possible, i would no doubt pass others, wearing their own veils...and i would understand them as well and be able to see that their aching mourning hearts are hurting too...i can't imagine how our veils from God's view must look as we walk this earth.. so many, so much hurt. He has to hurt when he sees the veils that others can't.

i feel so very different, so very set apart from society right now, like i have special glasses on that see the world in a WHOLE new way, a clearer way, but a sadder and more realistic way than many others get to...that special "gift" those of us receive when our world is turned upside down and we "get" to see everything so painfully differently....i feel at times that i am not ready to re-enter the world with everyone like that yet, almost like i am waiting for everyone else to "wake up" and taste life the way i do, the way i have to..waiting for others to catch up..but it doesn't work that way. i know that. everyone is plugging along doing their own thing. their loud worlds are rocking along even if our quiet stillness is idling.....that's ok. this is our season to mourn. not theirs.

the man, whose wife died 6 weeks after her cancer diagnosis, he buried her last week, he has their kids to raise alone now. the woman who lost her only brother in iraq almost 3 years ago, she is still devastated when she talks about it. the young mom who has to sell her house this month, the one her kids grew up in and has to move into an apartment after her marriage fell apart, she has to start over on her own, she is hurting. the young woman in line at the grocery store with the dirty brown hair in a messy ponytail with a sassy 3yr old little boy in tow, she's wearing a fake half-smile and her tired eyes are hiding behind her own veil of sunglasses. she lost her daughter. she died.