The details are important. They were important the night I took this picture some sixteen or so years ago. My babies are sleeping on Taylor Renee's favorite pink blanket, Taylor's tongue sticking out between her teeth, Wade nuzzling his favorite person, holding her hair between his fingers, the chubby cheeks of childhood, the distinct and prominent eyelids of each child- just like their daddy's, the sweet pink lips, the perfect slumber of siblings, and the headboard of the twin beds in my mother's room at my grandmother's house.
I was asked in court today how Taylor's loss has affected me and I could conjure nothing that resembled a detail. I saw and felt the white devoid space of the ER, and I looked ahead as if our attorney had not told me he was going to ask me that question. He had.. I gathered my thoughts this morning only to have one magnificent wave of grief take me out to sea. and leave me at the bottom of the ocean.
Here, waiting in the space that is my bedroom, rests this picture, this picture that captures the pieces of joy heaven afforded me.
As often is the case, I just began writing tonight, writing to quell the anxiety that tortures my being about what I said and what I didn't say, about being good enough and not being good enough - and it occurs to me that perhaps the details of loss belong in a place devoid of color, or logic, or meaning. Perhaps that's my validation for something so senseless, so needless, so unexplainable. Perhaps we shouldn't try to wrap up loss in a meme or grief in a pithy snippet.
I wish I would have said, "I miss this little girl, with the chubby cheeks kissed by the sun and freckles for proof. I miss the young lady she became and the big sister she would have been to her brother now embarking upon the world. I miss the friend who talked to me and listened to me and tweeted inane thoughts. I miss the imp who climbed up in my man's lap and became small and her daddy's girl even when she was 20." But those are only the beginnings of what I wish....
Now it's back to the details of living... of sending another child to college... of caring for a man who gave me these two sleeping babies.....of making sure my students are not casualties of someone not paying attention to the details....
These details are important....
Proverbs 3:24 - And when you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.
#golighttheworld