I am mommy. It kills me. I am love.

This is breaking my heart and there is no way I am capable of handling it.

Little summer dress with pink and red flowers that no longer fits my big girl.

And that tiny baby with the perfect, little round head, just like a peach, she knows her colors now, and can count to three.

It was summer, when Louise was born. The day we brought her home from the hospital, I limped up the walk, moving so slowly, so painstakingly. My mom and Scouty were waiting for us in the blinding golden sunlight. They blew up the baby pool and plopped it right in our tiny front yard, for all the world to drive by and see how much joy, so much joy, so much beauty, a little red headed girl so full of life and so wonderful and so loved, waiting for her new sister. A little unsure, a little tentative and so, so loved.

I didn't carry Louise. I couldn't lift her yet. There was so much sun. I was scared, and also, I was elated. I can look back, now and see that under all the pain and anxiety and fear, I was MOMMY. I was everything. I had TWO beautiful daughters. I had TWO of the thing that people dream all their lives about. I was beautiful, everything was beautiful.

I miss the baby on a blanket on the floor in a patch of sun. I miss July heat and the sprinkler in the grass. Daddy was there and he loved us so much. He loved me so hard that I fell apart. He loved me so slow and so hard that my wheels rattled right off. He let that happen, because he is Daddy and he can fix anything.

It was summer and I was in love.

They went to Grandma's house without me. I wanted that. I wanted a shower and a moment to heal. I wanted iced tea alone in the rocking chair on the porch. I wanted to wash my wound and close my eyes and listen to the bees and the traffic in the distance.

But the moment they pulled away, I curled into myself in the picture window and I sobbed. I loved my babies so terribly that I couldn't bear it, the lonely emptiness of not being pregnant, of being gutted. How cruel. I wanted to eat them up and keep them inside of my skin. I showered and gagged and cried, snot dripping from my face and circling the drain. I sat on the porch and put up my feet, my eyes were swollen behind my sunglasses. I wanted it. I wanted that moment. I loved them so. It killed me. It hurt me. It made me real. It made me holy. It made me.

Oh, how I love them. Do you see? There are a lot of things in this world, and I love them, only them, only them, only them, and because of them, I am allowed to love everything. I am allowed to have the sun on my face. Because of them, I don't hide anymore. I don't wonder anymore. I am MOMMY. I am love.

My heart.

It kills me.

I am love. -