This still, small week

It's still because last year, at this exact time, I was waiting for the day when Romeo Gerard would pass. And time stood still for at least a week.

It's small because, though time was still, it was short. Suddenly it was happening, and it was awful. Nothing could have prepared me for his passing, and that made the time all the shorter.

One week from Sunday is the first anniversary of Romeo Gerard. One year later, I remember everything as if it were yesterday, but more than any other detail I remember the way my heart broke. I remember when I started the process of the cytotec, and my husband didn't wake up to help me. My heart broke.

I remember realizing that I was the only one who could go through with this and even had he been awake, he couldn't really help me. My heart broke.

But, damn. I felt so alone. It was more than my husband sleeping while I had to use that medication by myself, knowing that it would cause my baby--albeit already dead--to come out of the place he belonged. It was more than the feeling that this couldn't really be happening. It was the feeling that God wasn't there, my husband wasn't there, my baby wasn't there anymore, and I felt truly alone. And my heart broke.

One year later, I feel that my heart is like a piece of notebook paper, crumpled into a ball, and then re-opened. My heart is whole; it has been repaired by the love and grace of Jesus. But all the creases and crinkles remain, evidence that I will never be the same. The scars are still laid bare, betraying a year's worth of struggle, rawness, vulnerability, pain, prayer, and healing.

***

I'm in my new state now, so I cannot visit his grave on Sunday. We will honor him in some other way. I'm not ready to make the day a time of celebration, though that has been the advice I've received. I do think we'll have cake, but to be honest, it will be more because I'll need comfort food than as a celebration of his short life. I think, probably, the best thing I could do to honor him is to go to Mass. I've been so busy moving and settling that I hadn't even thought to call ahead of time and ask that a Mass be said in his honor. I don't even have a parish here yet, so that would probably have to wait anyway.

Oh, Romeo Gerard. In this still small week, I remember you. I love you. I long to see your face in Heaven. Pray for us, sweet boy.