Half my life ago, a sacred tiny being came through my body and left this world much sooner than anyone expected her to. I have written about the events that led up to Annie Lane's birth and death before on this blog-the last time was a year ago. Today, my heart is no less broken than any other March 16th, but the way I experience it continues to evolve. Right after her death, I remember thinking that it would probably not be possible for me to survive it. Ten years ago, I stopped crying at her grave and started talking to her a little while leaving some little token of flowers or driftwood. Five years ago I stopped talking and began learning to silently share that space and time with her, not really thinking about anything, not trying to pay tribute somehow or to conform to someone else's idea of the grieving mother. This year, I did not visit her place of rest, though it was a beautiful sunny day and it may have been a serene visit. Something is changing about the way I live with her in my heart, and it seems less important to me to go to that place, less important to mark the day with solemnity, grief, even remembrances. It has been 29 years. After living with her and without her for this long, she is just present, and there is no need to mark or commemorate the date.
I remember, two weeks after she died, walking into a store where there were baby clothes and nearly running back out the door, heart racing and breaking. Last week, a co-worker brought her newborn girl to our department dinner and we toasted and celebrated. I did not think of Annie Lane. I realize that I no longer live with the loss, but with the realization that this child, like my other two, was never mine, after all-no more than any of us belong to our parents or are really just the product of the two of them. We are so much more mysterious than that, so much more impossible to fathom. Like life itself.
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