Crinkled Oranges

Saturday, March 23, 2013

August 24, 1979

I've spent the day going through files (really trying to toss).

 I ran across this scrap of paper which I've lost, and found, several times in the last 30 years.



I remember very clearly writing this while sitting on the bed at our home on 300 West. It was the middle of the night, and  I wasn't able to sleep.  I was still struggling with my feelings of loss from our baby, Annalee, who was stillborn on Feb 26 of that year.   It was heartfelt then and is heartfelt now when I type it.


Is it really so
this child of mine
Fully formed, so whole,
and yet not.

Did it really happen
those long nine months
of worry, elation, complacency,
and finally . . . numbness.

Who is she, this third little girl of mine.
Who I loved,
and would have loved more,
but who breathed not.







4 comments:

Tiffany said...

I'm so glad you typed this down so it would not be lost again. So sad, yet so beautifully expressed in your words. I love you and can't imagine the heartache you must have/still do feel as a mother.

tingey said...

Annette.....as much as you feel now, there will come a day when you will be the best mother to this wonderful child...And that day is not far away?

Tom Anderson said...

The sadness seeps from those beautiful words.

Misty B. said...

Thank you for sharing that. I don't think I could have related to that sort of pain until I was a mother myself.