Seven Years

It's been seven years since Lily died.  Seven years.  That's a long time.  I did a paper for my developmental psychology class this semester on the gender differences in the grieving process of parents who have lost a child and it was painful to do.  Studies have been done that suggest even five years after the passing of a child, parents still think of them on a daily basis.  I should have been in that study.

I think about Lily as I drive down the street and see the park where she played.  I think about Lily when we go to Target and Tatiana begs to look at the shoes just one more time.  I think about Lily when I go to church and see a little girl wearing the same Christmas dress I bought for her just a month before she died.  I think about Lily every time I wake up and see her picture hanging on the wall, constantly taunting me because it will never change.  I think about her every time I come to the intersection of Foothills and Hwy 92 and see Hatfield's - the mortuary where we picked out her casket.  The director suggested a cradle, but I refused.  Lily insisted on a bed instead of a crib the last time she was in the hospital because she told me that she was a big girl.

I think about Lily when I hear people talking of forever families and in my heart I listen for that small voice to whisper that it's true.  That she is mine forever and I will see her again.