one february day

To tell you the truth, I don’t even remember what day we picked up Abigail. But I know it was a Thursday, and I know it was in February.

I remember the day clearly because my brother and sister-in-law lost their precious baby Whitney that morning, and you never forget a morning like that. I started the coffee and Kyle and I both just sort of wandered around our apartment, getting everything together while at the same time not even knowing how to mourn the loss of a child we never got to know. It’s an odd feeling to mourn what might have, could have, or should have been. It’s a different kind, and definitely not the same kind of mourning what once was. To go from such joy and excitement to not being an aunt and uncle anymore after all in what seemed like the snap of a finger felt punishing. But no matter how we felt, or how much we wanted to lay around all morning and stare at the wall, we had semi-impulsively committed to pick up Abigail that day.

There’s sort of theme to our road trips, regardless of which car we take. My iPod usually wins, because no matter how much Kyle thinks he has good taste in music, the truth remains that he just doesn’t. Okay, that’s a little unfair. It’s not that he doesn’t have good taste–it’s more that he just doesn’t care. He enjoys oldies, will listen to just about anything acoustic-guitar-lead, and aside from that, it’s all mush to him.

Rosie Thomas is usually appropriate for any season, but specifically winter. There’s something about looking outside your window to a dreary, gray sky and listening to Rosie Thomas pound it out on the keys that just fits. So we began our journey, with Rosie Thomas singing something like, “I have much farther to go,” and we rode most of the way in silence. After arriving to Bethel, Ohio, we got out of our car and put aside our grief for a minute to welcome the new addition to our own family.

Nobody ever tells you when you’re young that when you get older, life gets more complicated. No one seems to mention that you are going to encounter loss time and time again, and each time it’s going to rip your heart out just a little bit more. People don’t highlight that love and pain come hand in hand, and that the harder you love something or someone, the more painful it is when they are taken away from you. And not that I’d want them to, and I probably wouldn’t have listened, anyhow. But I do find it strange and somewhat unsettling that while I watched all the mommies grow big bellies, sip tea, and talk about baby clothes I never heard the stories about the women that longed for motherhood.

I remember that February day. It was a day I realized for probably the 3rd time in my life that there are days that no words will do. And, that with every pain and harsh feeling this world brings, there can be a taste of sweetness. Somewhere. So thanks, Abigail Wilson, for bringing just a bit of sweetness to a very bitter day for us.