Man, it's been a long time since I posted here.
I've been having a hard time with this grief thing, again.
Being me, I felt guilty there for a while for not hurting enough and now it's back up to a constant dull roar.
Again, I know too well what I am missing.
Psalm should be six months old. She should be sitting up, her perfect little belly lovely and round. She should be babbling. She should be crawling, or close to it. She should be staring at the food I eat and trying to steal it from me, maybe even eating table food.
But instead she is ashes sitting in a box in my closet.
I have not been able to look too closely at that box. We got it the day of her funeral, in a green velvet bag. I have not opened the bag to look inside, much as I did not open her wrappings to look at the ruin of her body. We have an urn picked out, but I've been unable to buy it, in part because the lone review mentions putting the ashes of the author's cat inside, and even though it's not a pet urn I cannot bring myself to use something that someone used for a pet for my daughter, because pets are not family members.
Or maybe that's just the excuse I am telling myself. I don't know. Maybe the pain is just insurmountable right now. Maybe that's even OK.
I have a mini-crisis now and again over her name. Make no mistake, I love the name Psalm. I loved it even when it seemed too weird a name to ever give one of my children. But it was chosen back when it seemed we would not know whether our child was boy or girl. Had she lived, she would have been named Susan. Hell, even without life, had she been observably female to begin with, we would have named her Susan. And sometimes I feel guilty for not naming her that after all.
So. Psalm should be Susan and she should be pulling her brother's hair by accident and slobbering on him. But she is Psalm and she is a scar on my heart. I held her for her whole life, but I did not hold her long enough.
Her heart is a river in my blood.
I haven't listened to that song in a while. I think I outgrew the need, there for a bit. I need it again now.
