192 days
This past Saturday marked 192 days that we’ve lived without Zuri. The same amount of time as we had with her outside the womb.
I’ve marked these days out one by one in my journal, like a shipwrecked sailor marooned on an island, a castaway losing her mind, etching out the tallies on rock for no clear purpose. Waiting. Waiting for an unknown amount of time.
Six months and some.
She is really, really gone. The physical traces of her living in our home dwindles. Bottle warmer, high chair, baby snacks, all tucked away, replaced by framed photos. Static mementos rather than things lived in and used.
All the other babies in our lives have grown up. They are one-year-olds, toddlers. Zuri lives forever in my memory as on the cusp of crawling, forever with two teeth on her bottom gums, forever a baby.
I’m not sure how we’ve lived through these last months, except in a disembodied way. My physical body, going through normal tasks – buying groceries, taking the kids to school, making food, writing an email, and always, this soundtrack in my head: “My daughter is dead. My baby is gone.” There were the out-of-body experiences through the many, many holidays and milestones – Mid-Autumn, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Lunar New Year, birthdays… going through the motions, watching the shows, putting up the decorations, trying to continue to live this life, while feeling pain, pain, pain.
It’s the most beautiful times, the times together, that brings the most pain at the same time. One carseat too few in the van. One chair not at our table. One round face missing in the scenes of the older three playing together, laughing together, posing together. Four, there should be four. Always one too few. One too few. One too few.
The older three keep getting older – their faces changing subtly, day by day, their bodies lengthening. Not Zuri. Her fingernails will never need trimming again. The teeth buds in her gums – never to erupt. All of her that was potential, that was promise, that was turgid with life-in-boom — cut off, mid-breath.
192 days.
Enough for love to make an indelible mark. Enough for loss to leave a bomb crater in our souls.
“I shall look at the world through tears. Perhaps I shall see things that dry-eyed I could not see.”
“All these things I recognize. I remember delighting in them – trees, art, house, music, pink morning sky, work well done, flowers, books. I still delight in them. I’m still grateful. But the zest is gone. The passion is cooled, the striving quieted, the longing stilled. My attachment is loosened. No longer do I set my heart on them. I can do without them. They don’t matter. Instead of rowing, I float. The joy that comes my way I savor. But the seeking, the clutching, the aiming, is gone. I don’t suppose anyone on the outside notices. I go through my paces. What the world gives, I still accept. But what it promises, I no longer reach for.
I’ve become an alien in the world, shyly touching it as if it’s not mine. I don’t belong any more. When someone loved leaves home, home becomes mere house.”
– Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son
…..
Lord, High and Holy, Meek and Lowly,
Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.
Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.
Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter thy stars shine;
Let me find thy light in my darkness,
thy life in my death,
thy joy in my sorrow,
thy grace in my sin,
thy riches in my poverty,
thy glory in my valley.
The Valley of Vision
At some point, the adrenaline runs out. Will power runs out.
But His grace does not.