For the past couple of weeks, I have been in full nesting mode. At least, to the extent my "almost due" body has allowed (someone actually used that phrase to describe my ever-impressive physique recently...I just thought to myself...you should have seen 36 weeks with twins!) In the midst of cleaning out bathroom cabinets, sorting through no-longer-worn clothes and organizing e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g I could get my hands on, I allowed myself to slow down for a couple of hours to sort through one tub in particular. Yours.
It's hard to wrap my brain around, even now. How can your beautiful, precious, meaningful life be summed up by the contents of one large plastic tub?
It hadn't been opened it since we moved to Kansas...almost three years ago. Everything kind of got stuffed in there to "deal with later" because the loss was still too fresh. Now, with some time and distance between my heart and that day, I was able look at things from a new perspective.
There were some things I actually took out – realizing their irrelevance. Things from who exactly I couldn't remember and that you never actually used. Inanimate objects that once held great value had lost their power over my heart. And that felt good.
Other things, however, still made my soul ache. Like the pair of boots that matched your sisters that we used in our pregnancy announcement photos. And the little outfit your daddy and I picked out in Chicago that you didn't get to come home in. And the book we read to you and Lexi after all the tubes and monitors had been unhooked, and we we free to just be a family of four for a brief moment.
The hardest thing to look through, though, was a box. I didn't even remember what was in it at first, and when I took the top off, I didn't realize the floodgates I was opening. Cards and letters from friends and family and some people I didn't even know. Words of sorrow and grief and hope and love. Prayers that poured in over us. I read each and every one, sobbing at such raw reminders of our loss.
I needed that time, though. Time alone with you. Time before our next baby girl comes into this world to remember my baby girl in heaven. Time to re-grieve the immense hole your death has left in my heart that will never be filled, no matter how many babies fill our home.
What I realized through this time – through my lack of connection to much of the physical "stuff" but deep emotional ties to the words written by those who love us – is that your memory isn't defined by a tub full of things at all. It lives on in how you changed our lives. In how you changed the lives of so many who never even met you. You changed lives, Emmy girl, and your memory lives on through that.
Each night before I lay down, I go into the room you should be sharing with Lexi. The room she will soon share with her baby sister. And I tell each of you goodnight and that I love you. Because just like the little girl who is sleeping in the bed and the baby who is growing inside of me – you, my angel, very much still live here. In us, you live.
Miss you most baby girl,
Mama