Yesterday marked one year of missing our precious Abigail. Yesterday was yahrzeit. The following is an undeliverable letter for her penned from our beach balcony at sunrise.
Dearest Abigail,
I long to pen you a letter, yet the words fail to come because what I long for more than anything is to hold you, feel you, and hear YOU. My thoughts feel like the seeds of a dandelion blown in every direction, and I'm scrambling to grab hold of as many as I can. They keep slipping through the fingers of my mind.
I realize writing this letter is more for my benefit (is that even the right word?) than for you. You have no need of this where you are. Yet, what's a mommy to do with a year of unfulfilled longings, unmet desires, unmade memories, unsaid things? What's she to do with a year of unheard laughter, unfelt snuggles, unexperienced moments, unmet expectation, unwitnessed milestones, unkissed boo boos, unseen smiles, unbrushed hair, and unexpressed love? Even unsent and unreadable letters.
One whole year. How has it been a year since that horrible day? I cannot think too much about that day, sweet girl, because its cries of terror threaten to darken and obscure all the precious days prior. The memories are so intrusive, so paralyzing. The mind can be a cruel thing in grief, and I do not want the trauma to erase the treasures.
Oh how I miss the sound of you, the feel of you: YOU. The sounds and feels of those last hours torture me. I want to forget them, but I don't know how. I must redirect. So often Avonlea and I talk about how we wish this was all a nightmare from which we could awaken. About a week ago Daddy and I were suddenly awakened around 4:00 AM by the sound of your laughter echoing loudly through the house. I can't even describe to you the pain of fully awaking and realizing what we heard was a digital frame that had suddenly switched on due to some glitch. You also woke you sister up. I have to chuckle at that, or else I cry (I already did). You were good at waking us all up at odd hours.
We've "escaped" to the beach for a few days this week. It's been cold and cloudy: a bit like the forecast in my soul. Yet, today, I sit here for the first time with a beautiful sunrise that hasn't been visible these other mornings we've been here. We cannot, nor do we want to, escape you my precious girl. That's impossible, but your mommy is weak. I could not bear to sit home today reliving the horror of this day one year ago. Nor could I somehow go about as though pretending this day did not happen one year ago. Neither seemed healthy for any of us.
Instead, we came to a particular place you've never been with waves so loud one could hope they'd muffle the pain. That's impossible. It's beautiful here, but it's painful making memories that do not have you in them. I watched Avonlea build a sandcastle all alone while her brothers played in the waves. You were missing. I saw their footprints linger in the wet sand, and yours were missing. We've been here enough nights for all the kids to have a night sleeping with mommy: except you. The collection of shell treasures is missing all the broken pieces you would have added to the collection, and appropriately the same collection is made up of primarily broken pieces. Broken pieces for a broken family.
How I long to hold you, to feel your small, soft, warm body in my arms pressed against my chest again. How I long to hear, "I love you, mommy" in your precious voice. How I ache to feel your little feet burrow under my legs as you try to warm them while we snuggle with a book. How I long to see you run and hear you laugh with your brothers and sisters along the beach this morning with cold waves nipping at your toes as though their young lives were not marked with indelible sorrow.
Instead, we are going to make "'paMpakes" for breakfast, have PB&J for lunch, write messages in the sand, read a new story, and have ice cream for dessert: a few of your favorite things. We will talk OF you sweet girl while longing FOR you and waiting until we may JOIN you. You are SO loved, SO missed. All of these things are poor substitutes for the joy of your presence, and such isn't lost on us.
It also isn't lost on me that the first sunrise I've witnessed from the shore is today of all days.
"Yet hope returns when I remember this one thing: the Lord's unfailing love and mercy still continue, fresh as the morning, as sure as the sunrise. The Lord is all I have, and so in him I put my hope." Lamentations 3:21-24
I love you.
All My Love and Longing,
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