I stumbled on her name while scrolling insta.
“Grace Elizabeth”
printed on a stranger’s wedding announcement.
That’s my daughter’s name.
“Nobody else is ever gonna see Gracie girl.”
Every once in awhile I want to open the box
That holds the only thing we have of you.
Not the actual box though.
That is a weight I still can’t bear.
I mean, every once in awhile I want to remember you.
But the idea alone buckles my knees.
You would be almost 9 years old.
Nine.
Close to a decade.
I dream of you.
You’d be the most like Jonas I think.
Lean and brown,
loving being outside and swimming.
Asking Papa to take you fishing,
asking your Dad for any whim that crosses your mind,
testing me with a look I gave others my whole childhood.
I thought I’d miss you less by now.
I can say your name without falling apart.
I can tell others I carried a little girl once with out crying.
I can let your brothers talk about what they think you would have been like.
But I can not remember how you left us.
How I had you ripped away from me.
How I only had pieces of you to bury in a box in a field.
Maybe I need another decade to pass.
Oh Gracie girl, I ache for you to be here. Still. Almost ten years later.
