Chapter 1

“The world around you moves on, as if your life was never shattered, and all you want the world to do is say that your baby mattered.”
—AJ Clark-Coates

I haven’t spoken to anyone in four days – wait – maybe five? Slowly walking out to the mailbox to retrieve the pastel-colored envelopes filled with messages of thoughts and prayers, I try to remember who I spoke to last, or even about what. Returning to the house, I pause to watch white fluffy clouds scatter across an almost blindingly blue sky. Dropping my gaze, my eyes need a moment to refocus. One envelope is inscribed with a computer-generated address made to resemble handwriting, looking like a personal letter, tempting the recipient to open rather than recycle it. The lettering reads, “The Whitcomb Family.” Oh, I wish I could see their faces; asking, for perhaps the 159th time, why? Not even why me, just why? My throat tightens. Family. Just who is that, anyway?

Later in the evening, my phone vibrates distantly against the kitchen counter top, still strewn with unopened mail. Moving to answer it is an immense, unwelcome effort. The leather-covered photo album in my lap weighs me down. Expending the energy to turn pages, minutes pass as I sometimes stop to gently touch a face with a single finger, to smile, or occasionally wipe away a tear. Who would have thought, months ago, that so much time could be spent just sitting, staring off into the distance, barely moving? That Larissa Whitcomb, Executive Director of Sales and Marketing for You First Medical Equipment, would sit in a lounge chair, turning pages at a painfully slow pace. No one would picture this. Few people ever knew how important family is to me. Oh shit, do I say is or was? It’s bad enough to wrangle over every word I say to others, but I don’t even know the right words to talk to myself anymore. Few knew how every day I rushed through work and countless working-mother expectations just to get home to them, just to hear about their day and organize after school activities. As the soft rumble of the phone brings me back to the present, I glance at the clock and wonder if it has been minutes or hours since I sat down in this chair. Was it yesterday? Does it even matter? 

I rise, dreading both the summons to respond and the inevitable platitudes. On one hand, I appreciate people reaching out to connect with me; on the other, there is nothing anyone can say to change things or make them better. I receive texts several times a day referring to time as the great predictor of how to feel. “It will get better every day,” or “Sending hugs to comfort you in your hour of grief.” The worst: “Time heals all things”—as if waiting is the magic antidote. Some unnamed amount of time and this gaping wound in my heart will heal, with sutures composed of minutes and hours. I doubt it.