I want to hold her again. I want to go back to that horrible day, and hold her, and never put her down.

I want to tell her over and over that I love her. I want to hold her and breathe warmth and life into her cold, gray little body.

I want to feel the weight of her, or lack thereof. She was so little, but that last time I held her she was heavy from the fluids pumped into her body. It wasn’t right.

I want to smell her hair again, that sweet salty smell of her curl shampoo and her sweat and sunscreen all mixed together. I want to stick my fingers in her ringlets and watch them bounce.

I want to have not been in shock. I felt like I had to keep it together and I don’t think I let myself soak in our last moments. I couldn’t accept they were our last moments. How could I accept that?

I want to forget those images, forget that day, forget it happened at all and erase it from history, and instead just have her home with me, sleeping in the bed I picked out for her four years ago. FOUR! She’d be four in two months. Four.

I want to have one more day, where I get to see her as she’d be now, instead of always being a baby in my mind and memory. I want to know what she’d be like. Who she’d be. What she’d think and say and how she’d smell.

I want a do-over.

I want to talk about her all the time, but I don’t anymore. I think about her all the time. I ache for her all the time.

I want her to know that I will never get over this. There is a part of me that is so happy, but there is another part of me that died that day too. And some days, that part of me weighs so heavy, but I have to hold that heavy part up or else I’ll sink below the surface. I am so tired sometimes. I am so sad.

I want her. I want my family whole and intact. I want her.

swinging