As I drove by the store, my thoughts strayed to the history of a building: that I had walked, once, with a living baby girl in my womb, through the door of that building and carelessly walked around, shopping. I didn't know what would happen to me, or to my baby girl. I only wanted to buy a bra. I had been there. She had been there.
The light turned red, and back to green. As I left the store in my rear-view mirror it occurred to me that this mini-memory and little thought conversation I'd had with myself was a perfect example of how the brain hangs on to the tiniest memories in freeze-frame when a baby dies. I thought about how many hundreds of places I'd gone while pregnant with the other four children and how those memories have been sifted to the back of the file drawer, useless, and will never need to be resurrected.
But for Charlotte, what else do I have? It's all fair game.
1 comment:
I was working a very busy job in the city when pregnant with Hope. I used to go out (alone) for lunch all the time. I don't go to the city much anymore, as I haven't worked since I finished up for maternity leave, blissfully unaware at 36 weeks, but if I'm ever back in the city, I often look wistfully at cafes and restaurants and I think, "we had lunch in there". For I was never really alone during those moments, she was with me. I can't believe that's all we got.
And yeah, I bought the wrong size bras as well! I still have some of them and I can't get rid of them. Another small thing that ties me to her, in such small and stupid way.
I get this, I really do.
xo
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