Closing a chapter

April 21st - the day my baby was predicted to enter this world. Up to this point, I have been living with the haunting fact that technically, I should still be pregnant. And even for days after this due date, I still could have been had things unfolded differently...

The sun is shining today. A beautiful day for a birth day. This is the day I might have heard my daughter's voice and thus begin the days and nights of mothering.

This day has been looming on my horizons ever since the knowledge of my absent daughter beset me. These last few days have passed in apprehension. What could this day mean? Perhaps a turning of a page and the closing of one season of grief to give way to another? I've imagined that this day would mark for me the end of the haunting knowledge that I should still be x number of weeks pregnant.

A father's grief is different from a mother's. While I had the beautiful opportunity to feel our daughter move in me and respond to me, Jesse wasn't able to make that same connection. As a result, there is a mystery surrounding what fatherhood could have been like for him and Shaely. Nonetheless, he was a good daddy to her. He would sing to her and tap three-two clava pattern on my belly. She knew his voice and the sound of it made her happy. Somebody told me several weeks ago that we could take some comfort in knowing that our daughter had a happy dwelling inside me - void of things that would harm her whether emotional or tangible. It both breaks my heart and comforts me to know that our daughter was happy and alive in me.

This day is a turning of a page. How do I turn that page? It is by doing seemingly simple things such as taking down and reading each condolences card we have received. These cards have served as a memorial to my baby. In taking them down, I am letting go a little bit to the sorrow that has bound me from moving forward. They have, in a way, kept me suspended in the state in which I was first told of my daughter's passing. Moving forward doesn't mean forgetting. To me, it means allowing life to enrich me again, allowing hope to rise. I must do this for Jesse and I and for Shaely.