Unspoken

So much to say ...capture, remember ...and so few words that contain what wants to be said. 
We've done well, me, my husband ...my kids.  We lived on, survived.  Our bills are paid, names find themselves on honor roll, baseball is underway along with soccer, swimming, ballet and tennis.  We are living ...and life is full and busy.
It is when we stop, pause ...that we struggle for air, for words.
It has been hard for me as anger races through me, resting here and there, trying to find the blame, answer the question "why?"  There is no right place for that ...no answer.
I sit across from my husband and talk about the future, the kids, us ...  "Where to now?" he asks.
"Let's just go pick up Phoebe, and bring her home."  I sigh
How often had we done just that ...brought her home, picking her up from a friend's, an event?
How simple it all seemed then ...so, so simple.
He smiled back, crooked, pained.  His best friend, his best girl ...the girl with life abundant.  She cannot be picked up, brought home.  I have to remind myself sometimes that he must be hurting so terribly.  Both of us,
so seared by our loss we cannot help each other ...it's all we can do to survive.  What we do have goes to the other kids ...as it should.
There is so much to say and talk about, and yet we can't.  We are steeped in this grief.  It is part of us, who we are now.  It is always there, always the missing and the wishing.  I had so wanted to celebrate her eighteenth birthday with her, her graduation.  I felt as if they were mine too ....I fought to keep pace with her, to catch up.  She kept me short of breath ...she kept me living, grabbing each moment as if it were the last.
I have yet to celebrate an eighteenth birthday with one of my children.  Stephen turned that age when he was at the Air Force Academy.  He was in basic and we had very strict instructions, orders really, to send nothing that would call attention to him.  Staying below the radar was the goal.  And so, it wasn't celebrated.  Who would think I wouldn't make Phoebe's ice cream cake for her, make her Chinese food?  Its so hard to not have what I want so badly.  Things we take for granted ...so intensely important when they're gone, taken from us.
But its not always bad, this heaviness, awareness of the hurt, the big hole in our hearts.  There are moments we forget and it seems she is just out of the room.  She is, Phoebe is in the upper room ...and on her birthday, for a moment, through God's grace ...it is where we will all be ...with her.


Eternal rest grant unto Phoebe and may perpetual light shine upon her.  May she rest in peace.  Amen.