Phantom

Sometimes it feels as though you were just a passing shadow, my sweet girl--a figment of my imagination.

A phantom, if you will.

You come and you go but down in the depths of my soul, your mark has been left. You are always with me, yet not at all. I cannot describe the feeling of your delicate presence. I see all of your tiny clothes hanging in your closest and I imagine you in them. I kiss the turtle on the navy blue overalls I bought just for you and I picture them...covered with sand from your first trip to the beach. You giggle and wiggle, unsure of the grainy feeling between your fingers and toes. I see you wearing them with a bonnet, something I never knew I'd grow to love seeing you wear.  You would have been such a hat girl.

I sit now in your room, at a table just recently moved here, and it looks as though a ghost has merely passed through, leaving only a faint trace of you. Your crib, untouched, moans and creeks with the absence of your body. How it longs to hold you, much like my arms, feeling the rhythm of your breathing and hearing the soft coos of your slumber.

Your changing table, stained with the work of your father's and great grandfather's own hands, remains still and lifeless, much like your entrance into the world. Memories sit atop it's carefully crafted frame, gathering dust and waiting for something that is never to come.

I wonder what to do now. The colors of this room bring back fond memories of hope--hope in your future and dreams of ours together--how I imagined rocking you in the middle of a warm summer night, listening to the crickets sing in the breeze while being lit by the moon. I'm wondering how I can ever leave this place without you but knowing I can never stay here with you. All that remains now is your dust--your beautiful ashes we so carefully placed in glass--and your little turtle lamp. It sits here in the corner of your room, remembering you. Sometimes I turn your lamp on and leave it throughout the night, as though it's rays were capable of bringing just a little more life to your memory. I wonder if it will make me feel as though you were just next door, sleeping peacefully between feedings.

My heart aches a low ache, like the deep groaning of the earth. My body feels like a boat being rocked by the ocean waves: disoriented, unbalanced, fragile. I do not feel myself in my postpartum skin. My stretchmarks are just about the only things that feel natural anymore. It is strange, however, to see them shriveled and bare. They are like a wasteland without you to bring them life and character. No precious thumping under the surface to make such an ugly thing beautiful and worth while. No kicks and hiccups to make them complete and whole. I miss you, my daughter.

I long for the night when you will visit my dreams, laughing and gazing at me. I long to see the stars in your eyes as they twinkle with awe and wonder at the sight of me. What will it be like when you say my name, when you touch my hands and look into my heart with those sparkling eyes? What will it be like to dance with you in the fields of Heaven where we walk on rainbows and rest on the wings of angels? What it be like to hold you forever and never let you go? To never let you go...

For now I will wait and for now I will dream. I will cling to the brief moments when your peaceful spirit passes through me like the River you truly are. I will hold you on earth, my phantom child, as long as I can, in my heart.  And I will rejoice the moment the Lord whispers softly "Come home"... because then I will see your face and I will never again carry the sorrow of losing you. We will be together.

And you will never more be my phantom...