When you are those "other people"

I guess I've been bracing myself for Christmas. Dreading it. Considering how it was meant to be in comparison to how it would now be. But the pain is never in the obvious things. It's not sitting around the christmas tree opening gifts knowing that your most precious gift is not with you. It's not sleeping in the same room you always do when you are home and not in the one with the cot that you had envisioned sleeping in. It's not waking up on christmas morning knowing that the little red "my first christmas" bib is still sitting in the cupboard in Somerset West never to be worn by Sophia. These expected hurts are dull, present, but not sharp.

The pain is in the unexpected. Wondering if Sophia's name would feature (along with the other family member's names) on my folks' christmas tree and finding that in fact a delicate glass orb with an angel inside has pride of place on the tree, with Sophia's name and birthday inscribed on it. The walls of my parents' house are laden with photos of my neice - their only (living) grandchild. In the garage yesterday I saw the car seat my mom had bought to keep for when we visited with Sophia this holiday. These seemingly benign things rip and claw at my heart.

My brothers (one of which was married last week, another of which is engaged) and their significant others excitedly discuss the prospects of children. With some puffed up bravado they talk of the responsibility to have a boy to carry on the family name. Still, despite what has happened, so oblivious to how fragile, how uncertain childbearing is. It's as if the attitude remains "it'll never happen to me", that sort of thing only happens to other people. That was once my unconscious belief as well. Sometimes, though, you are the "other people".

Lately my grief has morphed into something which I suspect is more similar to the grief that The Band has experienced. In moments all the other side issues and complications are stripped away and the naked longing to hold my daughter is all that is left. It is like a hunger of the soul. A hunger that will remain insatiable this side of heaven.