Today, Wednesday September 24, 2014, marked seven months since Laine died.  And 52 months since Mia died. Days  like today are soul-crushing.  Simultaneously both toxically agitating to the mind, and  and mind-numbing, or perhaps cycling between these two states.  It’s like riding a sine wave, but with a child playing with a dampener function so that the steepness of ascent and descent are not clear ahead of being on the slope and the rates are changing.  On  days like today, my insides seem three quarter frozen.  On days like today, I think what Laine would be doing at this very moment had she not died.  Perhaps she would be trying to get her mother to do something she had no intent in doing, and in time through a strange concoction of logic, persistence and evoking of sympathy, actually succeed.  On days like today, I wonder what she is doing today in the world she now lives in, and if she is taking care of her sister Mia.  And if her sister Mia, in fact, even needs taking care of.  I wonder what she is learning right now.  I wonder if she can go backward and forward in time, and for her moment to be our eternity.  I wonder all of these things again and again.  My grief is at times huge and consuming, and seems infinitely deep.  But my joy in having had Laine for six years is an even bigger infinity.  That’s both a true and non-sensical notion.

I had a deep and sustained memory today of Laine trying on her clothes that Mathew and I had bought for her in India last summer, early August 2013 before her sixth birday.  She was thrilled to receive these gifts.  She was grateful and showed it.  She loved this yellow dress shown in the picture above.  It was slightly large for her, but she wore it proudly and well.  I remember how she changed, stood in front of her mirror, flipped her hair, turned and smiled.  I remember her running downstairs to show Anna and Mathew.  I remember she asked me to take a picture of her.  And I did.