I’m in the car on the way to the doctor.  I feel catatonic…is it possible I’m really on my way to do what I am on my way to do?

Husband asks a question, I think I answer, but he asks again. I attempt to answer, again.

I can’t speak. Can’t blink.

All parts of this reality, this life as a mother with a baby in her womb who was kicking one second and is now passed away, are fake to me.  I stare out onto the street because I’m grasping for something tangible.  That tree, that car, that building.  As it blurs by, I watch it and will it to ground me.  To help me come back to the here and now.  I’m terrified, and there is no end in sight of that which terrifies.

I’m on my way to induce labor.  At 18 weeks.  It’s too early, it shouldn’t be this way.  How could it be this way?

Something prompts me, wills me to look at my wrist.  Almost too scared to move, I glance down at my hands in my lap.  The trembling fingers and palms are there, but there’s also something else.

There is a bracelet I’ve worn my entire pregnancy.  A simple cord, entwined through a small piece of sterling silver.  Heavily stamped in the silver is a star.

I finally have something tangible to focus on, and I hold the little star, feeling its smoothness and its realness.  I’m grateful to the company that sent it to me, Bebe au Lait, though I’m sure they had no idea their bracelet would touch me in this way, for this reason.  The bracelet is a part of a beautiful mother daughter set, I had intended to buy Mabel Love her bracelet when she was born to complete our pair.

And I did.  Her bracelet arrived a few days ago and is the most tiny amazing little beautiful thing ever.

This little star, is now my Mabel.  I wore this bracelet for months, not realizing how much this silver star would mean to me, not knowing I would have it to remind me…

That Mabel isn’t gone for good, just gone to the heavens.  A place I can’t be just yet, but a place where she is always with me in spirit, with me in heart.

Soon after this moment of realizing Mabel is my little star, a friend sends this note to my inbox:

“Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.” -Eskimo proverb

Then a couple days later another friend (if you don’t read her blog, now is the time to start) emails me this:

Mabel Love,
on a cold and dark Canadian night, spread out with the black velvet, your story is a star hung on my soul sky.

Conceived in love, birthed in love and held in love, your love goes on forever and ever, and you, sweet Daughter have no end. You are an eternal star.

Then same wise and amazing friend leaves me this comment here:

In time, years, dust settles.

In memory, ages, God emerges.

Then when we look back, we see God’s back.

Wasn’t that too His way with Moses? “When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back” (Ex. 33:22).

Is that it? When it gets dark, it’s only because God has tucked me in a cleft of the rock and covered me, protected, with His hand? In the pitch, I feel like I’m falling, sense the bridge giving way, God long absent. In dark, bridge and my world shakes, cracking dreams.

But maybe this is reality:  It’s in the dark that God’s passing by. The bridge and our lives shake not because God’s abandoned, but the exact opposite: God’s passing by. God’s in the tremors.

Dark is the holiest ground, the glory passing by.

In the blackest, God’s closest, at work, forging His perfect and right will. Though it is black and we can’t see and our world seems to be free-falling in and we feel utterly alone, Christ is most present to us, eye beam supporting in earthquake. Then He will remove His hand.  Then we will look.

Then we look back and see His back.

He is close, Arianne… even in the blackest grief…
A gift in the grief… The Glory of God passing by in the dark.

I love you … and so pray.

Mable Love, the star that never falls…

And so a picture starts to emerge…I can see a purpose in this darkness.  The little star, God’s light, they help me traverse this wide and wild darkness, because they remind me that God is closer than ever.  I don’t feel the pressing of the vastness so much, I don’t worry about falling off a cliff, because He holds me still, calms my quivering.  Quiets me when the trembling reaches my bones, and fills me with so much peace I am floored each time I receive another wave of it.

I see God’s plan for me has not changed, His promises still remain, and even though the journey to Him took turns I didn’t expect, I’m still on His road.

Under His hand in that rock, supporting me through the tremors.  His gift of darkness, and His gift of the little star, with me forever.

I looked at the calendar today, counting the days.  Has it only been three weeks?  How is that possible?

Last night was another one.

A dream. One of those.

Those really really good dreams, but the kind that you wake up from feeling so sad.  The kind you don’t want to wake up from, because they are perfect.  The kind that you know were never meant to be.

Some nights the dreams are my life as if nothing had happened three weeks ago.  I am still pregnant in that world, womb swelling along with my ankles.  Kicks getting stronger, life seeming right.  I would be almost 22 weeks now, and these dreams are all about us discussing how strange and wonderful it is to be buying things for a girl for the first time.  Look at these beautiful things, how did we get so blessed? We entwine hands as we talk about how connected we feel when my husband feels her kick.  How happy we are that my morning (all day) sickness finally subsided.  We wonder if she will have my dimples and dark hair, or if she will have major curls like daddy, and visions of Mabel dance in my head.

But something did happen 3 weeks ago, and Mabel was born way too early on January 8th, the same day as my dear friend Steph.  I know that it was the perfect day, because Mabel and Steph already have a magical relationship, and they wait to meet someday too. They already love each other.

And just as real as those pregnant dreams are, there are the other ones that are almost more real.  The ones where the birth was different.  Mabel was born, but she was fine.  Tomorrow Mabel would be three weeks, so these dreams are about how I nurse her, have her with me every second.  How her brothers are so in love with her tiny perfection and how I don’t mind it when she wakes up all night.  How I get to use pretty girly burp clothes — just because.  How I wrap her in pink and we all laugh that I am embracing the girl side of myself finally.

Truth be told, sometimes these dreams happen when I’m awake.  I have always been a day dreamer, seeing stories in my head that I want to write about, or stories that are just there.  To entertain, to create, or just to have and keep in my head for a rainy day.  This habit hasn’t stopped now.  Sometimes day dreaming like this is beautiful and healing, other times it’s a ticket for a runaway train.

I like to think about Mabel often, but I also want to protect myself from falling into the darkness.  That runaway train is heading straight for the ocean, and is driven by the Despair that whispers to me.  Evil dripping from it’s tongue, Despair tempts me, telling me how comfortable it would be to just sink in, let go, give up, and let the ocean wash me away…

I wrap up those thoughts, brown paper, neatly folded, bundles of thoughts that need not be in my head.  I tie the bundles tightly with special unbreakable string and throw the bundles out into that giant ocean.  The big huge abyss takes those bundle-thoughts away, instead of taking me.  And I thank God again for teaching me how to endure.

This process is taking time and effort and OH how clueless I feel.

In the dreams I hear a voice, “just don’t look down“.

At first I didn’t know what it meant.

But as I endure and pray and raise my hands and heart and eyes on things Above, I understand.

Don’t look down.  Look Up.

The crunch under boots, whining about the sun in their eyes, left over rain water running down the street, it escapes to the drains.

We are on a walk.

Living out in the sticks means a “walk” is more of a hike through this low country, and an outing that requires water and an extra diaper shoved in the back pocket (just in case).  There will likely be injuries, most likely tears, to the knee and to the heart (because mama didn’t pack snacks).  There will be weird finds, and most likely mud.  We will dredge through all of it, for the journey.

Boy learns about gooey slug pods in the pond, other boy learns a messy lesson about running in the mud.  They all laugh and appreciate that one is tall while the other is strong. The other is just funny, but we need that too.

Their strengths compliment.  It gets them through their walk.  They talk about Mabel, how much she would love the view.  That gets us through our walk too.

We come home, wash each mud speck off.  Maybe need a change of clothes.  We are clean, feeling washed anew.  The walk was fun, and so hard at times.  Sometimes we wondered why we were even there.  But now clean, we can see it.  Feel the reason for those moments, the reason for that time.

***

Each day I am amazed at how God purges and cleans and wrings me out.  My Walk is being washed clean.  Some parts of it seem so futile, others seem so unnecessary.  I don’t understand is said, thought, felt, way too often.  All the wondering why it has to be this way, while also understanding why it has to be this way.

All of this since Mabel.  She was the catalyst for so much.  I can’t thank her enough for that.

Her life, her death. Transforming.  I can’t wait to thank her for that.

There is such a relief in being made clean, after all the bumps and bruises and mud and falling down.  Over and over and over. The falling.  He lets me fall, some times are harder than others.  They leave deeper wounds.  Sometimes I can’t escape being hurt, no matter how careful or strong.

He lets me get muddy and feel the pang of being unprepared or exhausted or needy or just — lacking.

It makes the washing so much sweeter, these less desirable parts of the journey.  The crying along the way is not in vain — crying in grief, for salvation, for thanks.  He knows every tear.

I put on this change of clothes, this new me, this new way to be.  I didn’t ask for it or expect it or see it.  I embrace it, because that is the only choice.  I love it, because that is the only way.  I let it move me, and I it.

And then start walking again.

Linked with Chatting at the Sky today…

**To see more photos from our walk peruse my Flickr page.

I sit on the porch, watching the blue sky — it is much more blue than ever before.  I can’t be mistaken, can I? This really is the bluest ever. Those clouds over there, the white puffy way that they appear, grow and mold, and dissipate into the next as they race across the sky.  They seem faster than ever before. The way the wind goes through those tall trees.  The lower leaves are blowing, the upper leaves are not.  Wind is only touching the parts it wants to move.  Each of these things cross my mind and marinate.  Sit a while.  I have time now, because most other things don’t matter at the moment.  I am changed.

The way nature is analogous to life is not lost on me, the growing and dying, and I imagine this is the longest I’ve ever stared out into quiet leaf world and wondered about the Creator.  How it could be that He made all this so perfectly, some of it for lesson, some for fun and some just because.  This New Me sees these things so differently now.  The New Me takes the time to see things differently.  I am changed.

The thing about life altering experiences is that you are just so ALTERED.  In the first days after we found out Mabel had been lost, I had the most unsettling feeling that I didn’t know how to act.  I didn’t know what to say or how to feel, what to do with myself or my arms or my hands or my thoughts.  I felt like I didn’t know the person I had suddenly and irrevocably turned into, in that split second when we got the news. New Me was totally foreign, and she was a mess.

Driving home from doctor, I cry out to husband.

“What do we do when we get home, watch TV?  This is all so civilized.  So ridiculous.  This is all so wrong.  I don’t know what to DO with myself.”

I couldn’t get over how sitting in a waiting room, for confirmation, another look at the screen, when we had already been told what they’d found, was a part of this wretched process.  That it was happening so calmly, and had happened like this to countless others before me.  Shouldn’t people be wailing and writhing around and shouldn’t everyone be mourning?

Sit here, sign there, take this. I need your blood pressure, dear.  All these to do’s circling around a baby who had passed away.  None of those to do’s settling on the reality of what we were all doing.  I feel like I don’t have the words to describe how surreal and out of body it all was.

It was traumatic. I am changed.

Go ahead sweet girl, go ahead and go home.  Have something to eat.  Make sure you drink water. Have a rest.

I scream inside HOW can you all be so civilized when my baby has died?! No one hears, they have other people on the list to help.  People with live babies are waiting.  I am not much use to these people anymore.  Move along now.  I am changed.

God whispers that I can do this.  One foot in front of the other.  I listen because I have no other choice.  He says get up in the morning, and I listen because I have no choice.  My stubborn streak seems to have been washed out of me and down the drain in the bath.  Replaced with a quiet obedience that is happy to hand other the steering wheel.  I am changed.

I notice little moments with my kids like never before.  This dimple, that eye sparkle.  The glowy look when we discuss a really good round of Uno.  I don’t care about things that are fleeting, I didn’t realize I did before, but — oh — I did.  I still enjoy entertainment sure, but tv shows and silly things and the drama of the internet seem to be entirely useless in my life now.  A quiet peace runs through my veins, placed there specifically by Jesus.  I name that peace Hope, and know it is a special kind that comes only from suffering. I am changed.

We struggle, oh do we struggle, with boys who are still autistic in spite of a life altered.  Even though their parents are grieving.  Boys who seem to need even more of our energy as they process their loss and how to react to ours.  Their issues bother me less, I am more patient.  I have sympathy for their inability to control their anxiety and raging outbursts, because I can’t control mine either.  Parenting them right now seems so much harder and so much easier, all at the same time.  I am changed.

I remember my labor and birth with Mabel, what I had to do, and I know it was Strength from above that got me through.  I remember reaching down to feel her head, knowing she was crowning.  The feeling that I had with each of her brothers, yet her head so much more tiny.  So many mamas who have birthed their babies have felt that moment, known it usually meant excitement.  That it usually meant pushing was almost over and you’d meet your baby finally.  I knew this time was different, but the joy in that moment still stands on its own.  I am changed.

I sit and stare at this screen each day, longing to spill out what I have inside, wondering what to write about next.  Do I write about the beautiful mundane, just the mundane, or do I write about Mabel every day?  How can I…but how can I not?  This confusion is maddening to a soul like mine who spent a lifetime thus far on self-reflection and working on growth.  It feels like starting all over.

I am so, so changed.

***

Friends, I have a request.  I am craving music, healing music.  Music about Jesus. I haven’t purchased new music in some time, this type of music in many years.  I long for comfort, music about the Word is a big way I receive comfort.  I need your recommendations.  Right now I am drawn to slow/indie/contemporary songs just because I can pray through them or sway through them or cry through them.  The faster rock I so adore seems to be too hard on me right now.  I would love to know what music heals and inspires you, even if it’s not “new”, it may be new to me.  Honestly even an instrumental that inspires would be great too.  Thank you so much for your help!

Quietly we walk across the sand, packed down by the tide, now low.  The immense fear I had in the car ride over seems to instantly, supernaturally disappear as I take each step.  All I can hear now is the surf.  I watch the sun, feel the wind and know I’m surrounded by the love of family and friends who couldn’t be here.  It’s so warm. Surrounded stronger by Father arms, I hear a whispering that Mabel is perfect.  Sorrow, tears and sadness, she never had to feel.  What more could a mother hope for their child? Peace washes over me as I give up wanting her here with me and KNOW she is safe and waiting.  I can wait too.

Now, here on this beach, all that is left in me is quiet contentment and almost — happy.  I will get to honor Mabel, these next moments are just for her.  How is it possible I could feel this good?  It is not from my own power.

We pray first, asking God to do what He is already doing.  Give us peace and comfort, take care of Mabel, change us, teach us, use us.

Sweet words are said to Mabel.  Heard or not, they make us feel better.  Closer.  Talking to her is therapy.

Next we take Mabel, her ashes are all that remain.  I want to keep some of her near me, but some of her we want to return to the ground from where she, we all, came.  Husband and I spread some over the sea, it seems fitting to be able to always look at the wide, captivating, deep-water and think of her.  I see thousands of tiny sea shells on the ground beneath our feet and smile, knowing this is Mabel’s perfect place.  Out of all our beach babies, I know she would’ve been the most in love with the ocean.

Flowers a must, next we release pink petals out to the sea.  The kids play soccer on the beach behind me as I smile and am literally out of breath at the Spirit’s presence and guidance of this perfect service.  They giggle as they too toss flowers out, watching them wash back in, then out.  Each petal slowly being drawn out to sea.  They understand the petals will be out there, even if we can’t see them.

Just like Mabel.

Pastor-friend is there to comfort, spend time, honor and read verses but his passion turns this next moment into a preaching moment that leaves me touched to the depths of my grieving, shattered soul.  It comforts and heals, God-salve being quietly pushed into every cracked crevice.

Saying thank you to him is inadequate, and unnecessary, he is a vessel for what God is saying to all of us.  But we are so grateful.

He preaches:

“If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.  My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.  Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. –Psalm 139:11-16

I am reminded that I do not have to fear being swallowed whole by darkness, Jesus-light keeps me safe from that.

Salve touches open wounds.  Healing.

I am reminded that Mabel was knit into my womb, the reason for our bond, our connection.  The reason I feel such a loss — that even though this other soul was in me, she was a PART of me, created within the lines and blood and tissue of the pitch of my womb.  The reason my other children are other parts of my whole.

Another crevice heals.

I am reminded that God knew every day Mabel would carry in this world.  While her soul still waiting for it’s creation.  It’s conception.  He knew.  It is ok.

Comfort wraps around my heart and body.

It’s time to leave as real world things like a parking lot closing bring us back to this life.  This temporary, full of suffering, redeemed life.

A life that began already dead, but in which our soul has been saved so we might Live.  The Promise stays with me, like a film on my skin.

Thick, heavy, sticky, soft, it reminds me of all that we’ve gone through with Mabel.  The soul-altering changes that we rejoice in, bear suffering and endure for Glory.  This film — this Trust Film — I need it.  It was missing before.

Content to head home, to new Life, in my new life.  This new me still like new shoes, waiting to be worked in, waiting for time to make them comfortable.  All I can do is just these things.  Hold close, cling, remember, surrender, endure and love.

**Sweet smelling flowers into the sea for their sweet sister

Yesterday was Mabel Love’s service.  Just our family and our pastor and his family.  Small, sweet, short.  But oh.  Profound.

I am still soaking it all in, the time we dedicated to her.  All of it.  I want to wait a bit before I write it all out, but I cannot wait to share it.

It will move you, of that I am certain.

For now I’m going to spend time with the little ones and make an urgent trip to the cupcake shop.  The half dozen that Erin sent me were gone in 3 days.  And that was me holding back.

I’m just making up for being unable to eat for the last week.  Promise. (kinda)

As I attempt to process my own grief, I hear the news of the earthquake in Haiti, the massive lost, and can only imagine how SO many families are now trying to process their own grief and loss, too.  I think about all the children that Compassion International helps there — over 65,000 — and how great the need is, and I feel helpless.

Truth be told, I haven’t been able to read many of the details or look at the pictures.  My heart doesn’t have any room left for it right now, but I read enough to know that the need is so very, very urgent.  Medical aide, food, water, shelter.  They need ALL of it.

I know if you are like me, you may be wondering how you can help, where to turn.

My dear friend Amber is participating in Hope for Haiti — an initiative put together by bloggers hoping to raise money for the American Red Cross and Compassion.

Take a moment to read Amber’s post about how you can donate and win her social media services, or any of the other donated prizes.  She also encourages people to donate directly to Compassion if that’s more your thing.

Please click over, even a dollar can make a difference.  If you can share about this cause on Twitter, Facebook, your blog — whatever, spreading the word is another way to help out as well!

Sending love to all of you.  So much love.

As I wake up, I see the colors.  The yellow and orange of the sun rising for the day, breaking through effortlessly.  The sky that once seemed hopeful now seems to apologize.  I’m sorry, but I must keep rising. I haven’t forgotten, but I have a job to do.

Once a sign that brought excitement of a new day, the sunrise quickly brings ache.  In a moment I’m in awe of the beauty and the next moment I’m replaying the Story.  Her story.

I’ve said that mornings are the hardest, and this is why.  The appalling sense of loss is fresh every day, so fresh it trumps even a miracle like a sunrise.  The Fall, their Fall, cleared the way for this, forced a way for this, allowed this, though somehow I thought I would be rescued from it.

My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. — Lamentations 3:20

What should bring me hope, instead triggers an almost photographic memory of the events that took place last week…

The waiting room.  Babies and bellies all around.  Praying for healthy child.  Praying.

Lights low, warm jelly, sudden silence.

Is everything ok?

Won’t talk to me.

“I’m sorry, but your baby has passed away.”

*

*

*

“We’ll take you out the back way.”

*

*

*

Clutch womb, cry out. My baby!

Phone calls, waiting, more exams.  Yes, it’s really true.

Linger on sweet face on screen…just one more moment. One more.  Please.  Please.

Medication, forcing, waiting, praying, laboring.  Cradling belly, imprinting each pain.  Each contraction. I will remember.

Water breaks, birth, our Meeting.  Sweet Mabel Love.

Holding, rocking, talking to her.

Crying, loving, waiting, saying goodbye.  God, how can I say goodbye? This isn’t happening.

Worrying, blood, relief, it is over.  Missing.

Missing.

|

|

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Wake up.  Repeat.

***

I have so many more stories to share of Mabel, this story is only one.  The worst one, the one that haunts and tears and beats me down with the trauma.

Her birth story, specifically, is beautiful.  The details worthy of sharing when I am able.

Her pregnancy stories are still tucked away in my heart.  I didn’t announce I was pregnant until almost the second trimester, I was too sick to blog much, thinking I had plenty of time to share how Mabel and I knew each other from conception.  How I knew I was pregnant, how I suspected early on that I was farther along than we thought.  How I knew she was a “she”.  How we found out I was right about dates, I was a month farther along.  How exciting it was that we’d get to have her even sooner.  How I was too sick to stand or walk or leave the house, but that every night I felt Mabel wiggling around saying hello.  Comforting my sick body and reminding me it was all for her.  How she was my least active baby, and how I treasured her quiet softness and imagined her soothing presence on this wild house of boys.

Stories that I feel are almost too hard to share, too hard to keep, and too beautiful to forget.

When I feel alone, worrying I’m the only one remembering, I know God holds Mabel, and He hurts too.

He remembers, too.

There was no way to see it coming, it hit me too quickly.  This was the biggest wave yet.

I stretch and bend, trying to ease a clean sheet snug onto my bed.  To smooth it out.  A smooth bed is a tiny triumph right now.

That’s when I find them.  Two tiny knitted socks.

A gift for Mabel, given to us at Christmas just a few weeks ago, these socks are handmade and so perfect.  Somehow they had fallen between my mattress and headboard.  I think the last time I saw them I had been holding them while laying down, smiling and imagining her wearing them.  I probably fell asleep with those happy thoughts.

As I retrieve them from the mattress, I hand them to my husband and quietly fall to the bed.  A tidal wave of grief hits me next, bowling my mind over and over having caught me completely unguarded.  Unprepared.  It tries to suck me down, deep into hysterics.

But I am held, protected from falling further.  Held by my husband and by God, both weeping with me. For me.

The trembling started deep within me, in places I didn’t know could tremble.  From my empty womb, dark and echoing, I cried out.  From the tips of my toes to my crushed heart, I cried out.  Breathing, breathing, struggling to breathe, and still they held me.

I fell asleep being held, by the prayers said over me begging for peace and sleep and comfort.  By strong Father arms and a knowing that it was ok to grieve and ok to feel peace too.

The night time is the beginning of the worst part of the day, for the night is when I beg for sleep while being scared to turn off the lights, but it’s the morning that I truly dread the most.  Each day is a re-do in the events that happened, the loss sustained, and the Grace that is needed.  Each new morning I have to face the day knowing I will have to do so much just to feel normal, to be a good mother, to not disappear.

I woke up and through swollen eyes sealed mostly shut with salt, I could see it would be a different morning.  This morning, caffeine arrived at my bedside along with a warm donut, hugs from many tiny arms, and plenty of love.

“I wanted this morning to be different.“  Man smiles, hoping I can smile too.

And I do.  If only for that moment, I smile at the effort and the understanding.  These actions hold me too.  I feel Held.

***

All of the love and support you all are sending over comments, emails, twitter, it all is holding me.  Keeping me going, reminding me of Life.  I feel so held by all of you.  Someday I will be able to reply to each of you to tell you how you’ve gotten me through this.  I can’t wait.

My friend Amy sent me this song, so I would know she was thinking of me.  I have listened to it many, many times, but forgot the words were so heartbreaking.

Listen to Natalie Grant, “Held”

I step into the shower.  Scared.  The steam makes my breathe catch, mirroring how my heart feels.  I can’t catch my soul-breath.  A crushed soul can’t breathe.

This is the first shower.  The first one since…

I’m scared because the shower is my thinking time.  The time when I reflect, get ideas, think about my writing, my life, my goals and my family.

I’m scared because the last time I was in this shower I was pregnant.  Everything right now is “the last time I did this I was pregnant…”

All day long I’m supposed to be in bed.  Recovering from the birth.

But I must DO.

Sitting = thinking.  Thinking = pain.  I can’t find enough things to do right now.  Everything seems trivial and pointless.  I went to the store yesterday and envied the way everyone there just went about their day.  I could barely walk, could barely breathe.  I can’t look people in the eye.  Envy turns to anger.  Don’t they know what just happened?  How can they just…move on?  Anger turns soft, and I know they don’t mean it.  Life has to keep going on.  Emails have to come in that seem futile.  The fridge is empty.  The clothes are dirty.  My hair and skin need water-life breathed into them.

So I step into the shower.

The sweat from laboring is still there.  I’m sad to let it go.  Each thing that I let go of, Mabel seems farther away.

The circles of sticky, where each wire was carefully place to EKG my heart…they unceremoniously surround my crushed soul.  The sticky won’t come off.  Sad to let go of the sweat on my brow, I am suddenly fierce in my desire to get these circle sticky marks off my body.  I scrub until I’m raw and red, burned, but the sticky is still there.  The sweat rinses with ease, but these symbols of heartbreak won’t leave me.

Next I notice my arm, bruised where elephant sized needles were shoved deep, to quickly give life.  There is sticky there too.  Tape ripped, hair with it, sticky remains.

Why won’t the memories I want, stay, and the others go away?

I relent, stop scrubbing.  And begin to rinse.  The water runs through my hair and I imagine Mabel’s hair like mine.  Perhaps it would’ve been straight and dark and people would have commented how much we looked alike.  I would’ve braided it and brushed it and laughed at what a knotted mess it often was.  I smile.

I notice the more I rinse, the better I feel.

The water, like Living Water, begins to slowly put this crushed soul back together.  I realize the soul will look different.  Never the same.  I don’t know how to be that new soul yet.  A soul crushed and rinsed with tears, filled again with Spirit and Promise and Power.  God-salve will have to fill every wound.  Healing takes time, a crushing wound one of the worst, takes the longest.

I stay in the shower until the water runs cold.  I imagine my heart thirsty for this cold water, and I stay longer.  No longer any steam catching my breathe, the cold now wakes me up.  The pain-stupor rinsed off.

I realize someone will start to worry if I don’t get out soon.  The cold begins to numb, and I know I don’t want to be numb anymore.

So I step out of the shower.