"Is it always going to hurt this much?"

I think we all wonder that sometimes.
Sometimes I think the answer is "yes, it is always going to ache, hurt, feel raw, and pulse with new pain with each breath taken"...but then time does her thing...

I wish she would get on with it, hurry it up, get it over with (time I mean), me, I am not a big fan of hurt, mourning, pain and loss. In fact I hate all of it, I have more important things to do with my energy and with my time. Ironically, I have learned if I don't give the pain, the loss, the sadness their time, they stick around longer.

Dang-nabit they do.

Today is my oldest childs birthday. Papillion. She is not with us. I didn't get to make her breakfast, no cake was baked, no presents wrapped. My heart physically hurts today. Fortunately I do have the gentle mercy of Bugs having both a matinee and show this evening that I am in charge of concessions for, to keep my hands and body busy...

At this point I should be a champion at loss. I mean, if anyone should be 'good' at it, I should...but no matter my veteran experience, at losing best friends,a serious boy friend, and my very own children to death and miscarriage....losing a live child, that is still living and breathing is a constant barrage on the heart. THERE ARE NO WORDS FOR THIS KIND OF LOSS. There are no cards made by Hallmark, no ceremony, and most of all very little understanding for the loss of someone not mentally healthy enough to live inside your home. And still there has yet for me to never have felt something as deep and lasting, with no closure, and still constant possibility of fear and pain...this kind of loss is endured everyday..

I spoke with her today. Wishing her "Happy Birthday" as her voice broke on the phone, I told her I loved her and was so grateful for this day that brought her into this world. She wouldn't give me an address to send her anything, but via speaker phone she spoke with each one of her siblings, tearfully saying she loved them and missed them.

In three days we will come to the one year anniversary since the last moments she was in our home.
The memory is thick. I think we all feel the weight, yet as I look around between today, and those days and months following Papillion no longer being safe enough to be in our home, I know time has indeed done what she needs to do.

A year later the rawness has gone. The ache beats steadily with my own heart beat, I doubt that will ever go...but today I laughed out loud, today I hugged my other children, with out holding back a piece of myself. I didn't have to mentally talk myself out of bed and through my days like I did those first weeks.
Today I told her I loved her, and meant it, missed her, but was able to hang up the phone and move on in my day.

So I guess to answer that question, yeah, my knees always ache when it rains, and whenever I see a butterfly, I miss her....