Rain

It rains outside. Rain that we need.  The air is clean. One daffodil bloomed, bright deep gold against the dark earth and the gray sky.  I think of you all day.  In some ways you seem more real, and I feel more deeply what I have lost. It seems like I should be able to pick you up and kiss you today, like I should hold you and have you so close.  I miss being a mama with her baby. It really hurts. But I have to accept it too, that you are not here, not in body. You are here in some other way, and I imagine you as pure energy, around me, as an angel, as an invisible baby, and I don't know what you are now.  I'm letting myself believe in the times that we will have more babies, and it will be so normal to smell them and kiss them and clean up for them and cook dinner.  In the gym last night a mom with two kids was leaving the locker room as I was going in, having a casual conversation with a stranger she said, "yah, it's a lot of work but it's worth it."  So casual, like it was nothing, just life to have these beautiful children to put yourself into. And I remember the times when I was afraid of the commitment, of the work, of losing myself in children, and now I think, that is such a gift, that work, that time, that sleeplessness, that love.  There is nothing like it.  As I try to recover from the searing burn of letting go of you that last time, from my arms, there is nothing I can think of that would be just as good. So I'll remember my good dream from last night, two children in strollers, one seemed like you, with warm, fat feet, and I touched them and was filled with joy and family.