Just A Little

I think that maybe I mean it could be, that I might have some potentially good news to share soon. I mean it could happen. Maybe. Hopefully. Possibly tomorrow.

Hold me.
***

I went to a panty party for a woman I used to work with today. It is three weeks before her wedding so it was supposed to be a low pressure luncheon filled with giggles and trampy lingerie.

Sadly, I am the only one who got the memo about the trampy part. People bought her underwear that was not see through, not a thong and that you could possibly not be embarassed to leave on the chair when you go to the gynocologist. That is just Wrong Daddy Wrong.

We had a lovely lunch. Very light-hearted. And then something nice, but so sad happened.

Gladys' husband and daughter came.

None of us had really seen her daughter since the funeral. And she was so tall. So big. I realized that when Gladys died her daughter was two and a half years old. That was four months ago. Four months is a long time when you are only 30 months old.

I never thought she looked like her mother that much. I always thought she was sweet and shy and pretty. But now, now she looks like Gladys. Her hair is the same. She holds her head the same way. Her smile is exactly the same if you ignore the tiny baby teeth.

I went back to my office and bawled in the bathroom for ten minutes.

They are doing so well which is wonderful. But she is a toddler. Right now she still asks for Mama. She sort of remembers all of us from her visits. She doesn't honestly understand why we all need to see her so badly. Why she will always be so important to us.

But soon, too soon, she will not remember. She won't remember her mother at all. She will know her face, because her grandmother and father will keep her picture close all of the time. She will hear stories.

But the memories will fade soon. She will forget her mom coaxing her hair into pigtails. She will forget whose chest she slept on every night as a newborn. She won't remember how special she was.

I know that this is a good thing. I know that you cannot live in the past and it will do this little girl no good to grow up longing for something she will never have.

But my heart is broken about it anyway.