There’s a heaviness that creeps in this time of year.  I don’t even realize it’s heavy until it fully settles on my chest, weighing me down, making it hard to breathe.

I don’t even realize it’s heavy, or stop long enough to feels it’s heaviness, until you ask me, pointedly, how I’m doing.  I know what you are looking for, your question, ‘How are you doing?’ cuts through the bullshit of the day-to-day.  Your question cuts right through me.  So, I breathe.  And, after I breathe, allowing the heaviness to fill me, I tell you about it; I describe it to you, hearing it for the first time this year myself.

If I breathe before I answer, I can feel it all. And, If I sit still for long enough, I remember. 

I remember the pink nightgown I wore the morning you passed.  I was sweeping our apartment at 38 weeks and 2 days.  He made a video of me sweeping that morning and I laughed on camera in my pink nighty.  That nightgown, now folded, sits in a bin with a green maxi dress, and an all-black outfit.  These items, I will never part with, but I will certainly never wear again.  That nighty, worn by a woman I can’t even remember.  I’d never wear that nighty now; I’m a tank-top-and-thong-to-bed girl now.  This pink knee-length nighty represents a woman that I don’t know anymore.  Tucked nicely into a plastic bin it sits, along with my naïveté.

Busting at full-term, I slipped off the nighty and into a green maxi dress, perfect for running errands in late September.  I felt you kick in the parking lot at the Superstore.  I remember that moment, standing in the parking lot, saying hello to you, only because I was asked, later that evening to recall it.  That moment, like so many in the previous months, stopped me for a moment, but wasn’t anything to write home about.  You kicked, I acknowledged, and into the grocery store I went.  It wasn’t until I was asked, ‘When was the last time that you felt her move?’ later at the hospital that the moment became forever engraved into my mind.  That kick, the way I cupped the lower right side of my belly while standing in the parking lot, will never dissolve into the day-to-day. 

You, sweet girl, will never dissolve into the day-to-day.  Try as I might to busy myself every September, the moment I stop to breathe, I feel you, and the moment I steady myself, I remember.

Today, I cry for you.

Tomorrow, I celebrate you.

Every day, Mama loves you.