Her Story

I knew that one day I would want to tell her story.

Yet it is so hard to put words to it. Difficult to begin. Difficult to write. Difficult to end. Is there really ever any end? I have a patient who is in her early nineties. She forgets everything from the now, even if she ate supper or not while I am still clearing her dishes! There is one thing she doesn't forget. She tells me regularly. About her third son. He lived only nine months. Together, we pause in sadness and remember him. She wipes a tear off her wrinkled face and invariably says, "but he is in heaven, and I guess I will see him soon." She sighs, "It's been a long time."

So tell me, when does it end? The day we bury a body? The day we remember a year gone by without her? The day we forget to remember one day? When we have another child? When we have grandchildren? How about great-grandchildren? Or when we are 92 and pause at the nurse's station to talk of our child we lost?

Maybe it only ends when we walk into heaven, eyes finally opened for the first time, meet God face to face, and then (how do you say "then" or "after" in a place with no time?) look around and go running, running to gather them up in our arms finally, at last - oh, how I missed you! Does it end then? Maybe not. Maybe it only begins. I am still waiting for the beginning with my baby. The ending started before the beginning. Death before life. It is not supposed to be this way.

This is why I can not write this story. The tears come and block my view.