Reality

My brain cannot seem to wrap itself around the finality of death.  Every day has a surreal quality to it, as though I'm enveloped in a thick blanket of fog.  My heart cannot, or maybe it simply chooses not to, face the cold, harsh reality that Laynee Grace is not coming back to me.  There are moments  in every day when the habits formed in life with Laynee and and the reality of life without her collide, and truth nearly knocks me to my kness.  At night my mother heart needs to check on my baby; reality is that she is not there.  At dinner time, habit tells me that someone needs to put her in her seat, her seat remains empty.  As I leave the house in the morning I feel as though I'm forgetting something important.  When I leave work, my car wants to automatically head toward Kathy or Karen's to pick up Laynee.  A painful blow to the heart reminds me that I must go home alone.  In the car my eyes make the cautionary sweep from outside mirrors, to rearview mirror, to where Laynee sits.  Her seat is vacant, void of car seat and curious eyes watching out the window.  There remains a sense that Laynee is away and now it's time to go get her.  Perhaps I'm locked in a nightmare and I'm going to wake up soon. Something's missing, something's empty.  There's a void that I cannot fill.

At times my mind wonders if I imagined all of it.  Was Laynee just a beatiful dream filled with love, joy and happiness, the kind of dream that brings a smile to a slumbering face?  Did those 2 1/2 wonderful years really occur or was it just a figment of my imagination?  She came to us so suddenly and unexpected, like something one only reads in a book.   The time that she was with went far too quick, like a breath, a blink, a heartbeat.  Could it be those years were all fictional,  it didn't really happen?   My heart knows that this aching is not imagined.  It is painfully real.  Truth and reality is everywhere.  Her room tells me that indeed a beautiful little girl occupied that space, a little girl who loved her heehees, tore at the window shade, and threw all of her clothes from her drawers.  The tree outside, planted in her memory, reminds me that she was here and now she's gone.  Tears in the eyes of my children at the mention of her name remind me of the love and pain that we share for one blessed child.   The dark mound of dirt in Tremont, the mound that's smaller than most, is proof that I held a precious baby who now rests in Jesus'  arms.