January 17

January 17th marked one month since Mara died. As I type this in September, it feels like a completely different lifetime, just like December 17th did. On this day in December, we were coming home from looking at Christmas lights and talking to my family on the phone. I had been having contractions since 4:30 and wishing she would come soon. She did, but our time together was much too short.

I had been dreading January 17th, the marker of the passing of time, and I imagined that I would spend it huddled in bed crying and hiding. But my good news is that I did not, and more importantly, it did not occur to me that I was not at the time. I did laundry, housework, yardwork, walked on the treadmill, and thought about Mara, but it was not until I closed Aaron’s door after saying goodnight to him that I remembered it was the one month marker of her death. At first I felt guilty, like I SHOULD have spent the day in bed, or at the very least in tears. But as I thought back through my day, I knew that I had spent the whole day thinking about Mara, like I always do, but it was not a day of despair, like others had been, and would be. Thinking about the night we lost her is still physically painful, as is the sharp ache of desire I have to hold her.