The Spider and the Fly

hidden thoughts of a bereaved mother

Reverie is playing on the playroom floor. She just saw the tiniest of spider…and stopped to watch and study it. Her face, scrunched, in curious awe. It was precious to watch…but I did kill it lol.

She is 7.5 months, and is getting closer and closer to the age of Valor when we lost him. 11 months and 23 days. I’m terrified, if I’m honest. Once she surpasses him in age- what happens then?

Right now I enjoy the little reminders of the milestones we saw him cross.

Recently her hands have started slapping the wood floors, making exactly the distinct sound I remember so vividly, being a part of our day-to-day noises when Valor was alive.
The sound of the soft flesh of baby palms meeting the hard glossy surface of hard oak beneath them while the wonders of the playground of home, are explored.

I see so much of him reflected in her. But what happens when everything I see in her, experience with her- is not a mirror of something I remember, but of new ground entirely. What happens when everything is only a reminder of something I didn’t see him experience?

It’s like the closer we get to her first birthday, the further we get from the birthday he never had.

I used to feel so close to Valor. Like I still remembered knowing him. Like someone you talk to everyday- the familiarity of your relationship. You know them like the back of your hand. I truly knew him. I knew him better than anyone on the face of the earth.

But now… Reverie is so close. So…. here.

I feel as though I’m getting to know her more than I ever did him. Sometimes I question myself “did I really know him like this?”

If you suddenly stopped talking to your best friend- whom you were certain you knew intimately- and they knew you. But then months pass and you.. you change. Have they changed?
Years pass and… you’re an entirely different person than they knew. Are they? Do you still truly know one another?

If I, Mikayla, Valor’s mother, knew him best- what becomes of his memory when his own mother feels like her own close intimacy to her child, has slipped out the back door, without my consent…to reside so very far away.

And I find myself now, snuggled, flesh to flesh with Reverie. She is so close…. so here. I can touch her, smell her, study her- like she does the tiny spider on the carpet.

I love Reverie so much it physically hurts. My heart could burst from looking at her. I look and her and think… surely if she died…. like Valor did…. surely I would not be able to breathe another breath in this life. Is this the magnitude of love I had… have…. for Valor? If so… how am I alive? Did I not love him with this kind of love?

I remember my fierce love for him through my fierce love for her.
That is so fresh now.

It all aches. Even writing this down, saying it out loud- feels like picking at the scab and pouring salt in the wound I’ve worked so hard to heal.

How have I survived this?

I have no answer.

None but…
God.

My only answer.

He must have been holding me. That day.
And every one after.

Breathing for me.
Back when I should have died with my child.
Back when my lungs should have collapsed.

Reverie crawled over to the windows. The big bay windows we have, floor to ceiling. She’s now sitting in the light, batting with her chubby hand, at a fly that seems caught in his delusion that this solid glass is a doorway he can escape. She’s mesmerized by the fly as I am with her.

She’s wearing a blue button footy that was Valor’s.

He was just here.
By this window.
In this blue button footy.
With my love, as his.