Here. After.

This is a repost from October of last year but timely on this day for a lady I'm lucky to have in my life.

I'm thinking about a friend of mine today.  I'm thinking about the contradiction that you feel when you lose something you never had, didn't ask for and weren't sure you wanted.  The hollow, unsatisfying relief that comes when something ends that never had a chance at a beginning.

She's in the middle bit right now.  The middle that's the pits.  The middle that comes between the blissfully ignorant part before and the resolved to heal part that envelopes the after.   

I'm sure I don't know what happens to those little ones we lose.  Some are comforted by the knowledge that they journey to the Hereafter.  All I know is that we mother's that lose...we have to be here.  After.  Here without something we never had in the first place.  Here in this place.  Here in this day.  Here in this life.  After.   

She'll be the one to decide how long this middle bit goes on.  She'll have some help, but it will truly be up to her to decide.  That's when the middle bit that is so difficult comes to an end and becomes a beginning.  A beginning where you can look around at the Here.  And after everything.  Be happy you've arrived.