On Talking To Strangers.

The other day I went for a walk.

On this walk there were many people like me.  And by that I mean normal-ish people in their thirties, who struggle with horribly mundane problems like five nagging pounds and crowded Starbucks lines and premature gray hair.  And by that I also mean, they have lost a child.  

I'd be lying if I said I looked forward to such walks anymore: Saturday mornings and all their promise.  I'd be lying if I said I never found myself looking back; that pink ribbon never shook me. 

"Can I call anyone?" the nurse had asked, her hand shaking over mine. "It's better if you're not alone."

I remember the words sounding strange, and I remember noting the time.  Spaghetti dinner, and I would ruin it.  

In the beginning these walks were like a tourniquet.  Life-saving.  I craved connection and commemoration and steps; the purposeful kind.  The kind that offered a glimpse into the lives of others like me.  The kind that provided pain but also hope, in the form of tiny feet peeking out from strollers to my left.  In the beginning, I needed hope as much as I needed oxygen.

Lately, the longing to connect remains beneath the surface. At times it's quite muted amidst the bath schedules and mid-quarter grades and pack meetings and very, very early mornings in rocking chairs.  I no longer need help falling asleep or Kleenex on my lunch break.  I am sure to all who know me it seems that I'm doing okay, and I guess that would be the truth.  I'm okay, although there remains a massive part of me that will never fit inside that word, and so I walk.

This year a woman approached me near the end.  I turned to face the river and she was beside me.   "You don't know me," she said, "but when my son died, your writing helped and I wanted to thank you."

I didn't know what to say, so I thanked her in return and I asked her name and then I hugged her.  Because sometimes, when your baby dies and there is a lifetime in front of you, words become small.  And because always, when you meet someone who understands, words become dispensable.

I cried on the way home, but not because I was sad.  

Too often anymore, she resides in afterthought.  The sights and sounds of that hospital room have faded, blending too easily with the smiles in the foreground.  But I still miss her, so immensely, with every breath. In the nearly five years since my daughter died, I have packed it all away for the sake of social comfort too many times to count, but it still hurts.  I cried because when I close my eyes I can

still feel her on my chest and after awhile, when you've hidden that weight behind too many sunglasses and play dates and empire waists it starts to feel heavy, and you have to set it down.

At home I composed myself in the driveway.  Then I unbuckled two sleeping children from two car seats and tucked them into two beds in two separate rooms.  I sat on the couch and I thought of the nurse from that night; The hitch in her voice at the welcome desk.  Her grip on the ultrasound wand.  The way her words were calming but her eyes were not. 

Were she here, I would thank her for holding my hand, and for trying so hard to find what was no longer there.  I would thank her for the paper; for helping me to write it down and I would tell her what the last five years have affirmed for me, time and again.  This life is hard.  

It's better if you're not alone.