Sundays

I used to hate Sundays. When I first met John, I was in college, and I would spend the weekends with him and then on Sunday nights, I had the gloom of the impending week in front of me, and the egging feeling of the studying and homework I should be doing hanging over my head. But I ignored it and spent the time with him instead.

Then for a few years, I loved Sundays. I had been in school my whole life until that point, so Sundays without homework felt so great. We could do whatever we wanted on Sundays. The week ahead meant nothing. I was happy enough to just be with him even if I had to work the next day.

And then, nursing school. The gloom of hours and hours of work was always on top of me. Always more to read, study, write, prepare. It was intense all the time. Sundays didn't really matter... every day was filled with that egging feeling of work work and more work. But it all paid off in the end. Once I got the job that I loved (and still love to this day), my days off were completely care-free and we had our whole lives ahead of us. Two well-paying (mostly) jobs that we love and could be proud of.

And then, the gloom we had no idea was coming slammed into our lives and brought us to our knees. The cherries on top, the last pieces of our puzzle... you know the story. Carefree Sundays no more. Except this time, there's no graduation in sight. Grief, unlike intense school work, never, ever ends with a reward. It's forever. An unremovable fresh tattoo on our broken hearts.

Today we went to a housewarming party for one of John's work buddies. It was a beautiful breezy spring day. Lots of good food and nice people. Nice people who I feel I have absolutely nothing in common with. Policewives, mothers.. to beautiful infant and toddler daughters. And yet the space between leaves me feeling so alienated. The two women I know best asked me how I was doing, and seemed pleased with my "I'm hanging in there" answer. They genuinely want to get together at a later date in a smaller group so we can talk. My arms ached to get Kathlyn's picture book out of my purse, but I didnt want to be the big downer. It's just not fair. I admired how beautiul their little girls are... so beautiful and well-behaved and polite too, even as young as they were. But they didn't get to admire my beautiful girl. If someone had asked about pictures, I could have gotten the book out and usually what happens in groups is that once the book is out and someone is looking at it, everyone else asks to see too. But I never got the prompt initiated to get it out, so no one got to see her beautiful face or listen to me talk lovingly about her. If anyone noticed my Kathlyn necklace, no one said anything. Some of the women I dont know as well tried to ask me about work, but I just didn't have it in my soul to do the idle conversation. I would have been fine to talk about work, but once their questions stopped, I stopped talking. They would have had to lead the conversation, I'm too exhausted to carry it on by myself. I have a sad aura... so they gave up. I dont hold it against them. I know they wish they had the right words to say, but those words don't exist. I've lost my ability to relate to happy people at Sunday barbeques.

I still love the time with John, and I know everyone wants that to be enough. But such a huge piece of me is missing, so it's just not. It's a piece of him too. I can't look at him and not think of her. One of the little girls at the party is the spitting image of her father. I've marveled at this before: how can such a pretty little girl look so much like a grown man? Melody's baby is like that too, and I saw so much of John in Kathlyn. I want to see more... where's my beautiful little princess who somehow looks just like her handsome daddy? I miss her so much. And I miss being pregnant too. Everyone is so nice to you when you're pregnant. I could have had more to talk about if I had my little cherry. More oppurtunities to talk about Katie too. "Yes, we're very excited about the new baby, but it's bittersweet... we are scared and we miss our other little girl. But we love this one so much too and have faith that we will feel joy again. We hope this baby looks like her so we can get an idea of what it would have been like to watch her grow up." And so on. And so on. But instead, I sat on the couch quietly and watched everyone else enjoy their carefree Sunday, eating, joking, tending to the kids, enjoying.. while my day just went on without my daughters, without my permission, just like all my days do.