Eleven months ago today Julia passed away. I was spending time reflecting today about her. I started trying to remember when she went back in the hospital. I knew it must have been around this time last year. It was on the 6th, 1 month and 2 days before her death. One year ago I was clueless as to Julia's fate. That was good.
It's funny the things that trigger emotion. Yesterday, I was sitting in on Mattie's grief counseling through Hospice. It is really just a time for her to play and the grief counselor and I just are observers. It takes place in a wonderful play room and the grief counselor has a huge collection of toy figures of all kinds, both people and animals. Mattie likes to act out things in this sand table. As I was sitting there, a particular puppet caught my eye out of the 20 or so puppets on the puppet stand in the room. It was right at my eye level and it was a puppet in a surgeon's outfit. Seeing that puppet automatically took me back to being in the OR for my C-section with Julia. I started reflecting on the moment she was born and how happy I was she was so much bigger and healthier than expected. It was such a joyous moment after months of fear. The future looked optimistic. Bob was so loving and supportive. She was beautiful and she had red hair. All those memories... spurred on by a puppet. And then there was an interesting moment in Mattie's play a few minutes later. She had separated all the people and animal figures and put a fence between them. She had taken one of the unicorns and buried it. She made sure the unicorn was completely covered. And then she paused. I couldn't tell if she was temporarily distracted by the fingernail on the thumb which she was looking at... but it seemed a bit more than that. It was the look on her face. Was she working out Julia's death? Who knows? She's 5 years old and it's difficult to make conclusions such as that. But it certainly touched my heart. At the Christmas Eve service in Tahoe, she said at one point, "I miss my baby sister." I know she does and that is what tears my heart in two. The whole thing is just not fair. Thankfully, Julia got the best deal of us all. But even she was deprived growing up with her family who just wanted to love her.
I miss her.
