Reticence

I have fought writing and expression these last few months. God,  it's been over two months.  Hannah passed over a year ago now, and her birthday has passed.  Another birthday we will not celebrate with her. I no longer know how many days it has been,  and the flow of days and weeks brings little comfort. There are  reminders in everyday life of her everywhere I go: art,  music,  flowers,  books yes,  but blue hair,  safety masks and gloves,  blue Volkswagens,  my back yard.  When I hear a fire engine,  my throat tightens. The sense that they are there to rescue is mitigated now by the knowledge that that sound can also be linked the darkest moment in so many lives, in my family's lives. I live in the house where she passed.  The door to that room is closed,  and I struggle to go through her things,  knowing it takes me farther from her. I feel a sense of failure in the avoidance, want to clutch everything to see if I can smell her in her belongings, but know that they are just things.  The phrase that I taught my children all their lives "they're just things" mocks me now,  because her things are all that is left of her. 

There is a softening of the pain of her death,  like a scar that is healing. There is a quote that I am trying to remember about the sensation of a scar. It distracts me again from writing, but I see that,  see the way in which my mind distracted me from getting close to the feelings again.  I will sit with that understanding,  sit with this feeling of peaceful sadness that I am having this morning.