Eleven

“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart
until, in our own despair, against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
— Aeschylus

I can’t go to bed at night without looking in on my children. I make sure their toes are tucked under blankets. I marvel that my tiny babies — and they were TINY, peanut babies — are suddenly long enough to have toes protruding from blankets.

Eleven years is approximately 4,015 days. Gabriel has been gone for more than 4000 days! That I live in this world where toes need tucked in and someone has been missing for more than 96,000 hours boggles me, especially this time of year. His loss is always and forever.

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I have no other words for today for now. We are off to Mass, and to a small gravesite after. Six white flowers is not enough to mark four thousands days. But it is all we have.