Open the Box

Samantha's name doesn't come up very often now a days.  It's harder to find an excuse to bring her up than ever before.  It's been nice that Alexandra still brings her up- she told a lady at the library yesterday about her.  She usually calls her Mommy's baby and not her sister, but I can understand that.
I am still going to my support group in Austin.  Boy that is a place a feel so at home.  I tried many different groups and communities and this is my home.  I may have nothing else in common with the people there other than the fact that we have children that have died.  But that connects us and the environment there does just what it promises.  Healing.  Just a shoulder to cry on, open arms, a place to "be".
The last few times I went I wasn't sure why I was going.  In the past I either couldn't wait to go because I needed it so bad or I had a list of little occurrences I wanted to share because they are the only ones who would want to hear about it.  But lately, I just go.
It's as if - in my everyday life - it never happened.  No one knew her, there are no empty spaces to remind me she is missing.  I looked at Hannah's scrapbook and it didn't hurt.  I pretty much never used to look at Hannah's scrapbook, only Samantha's.  But I wanted to look at Hannah's babyhood, which she has left behind completely.  The pangs I expected never came. 
Somehow the lack of pain was nice, but a little strange.  I didn't want to think about this thing that happened.  But it wasnt a peace- it felt like a numbness.
At My Healing Place (or as Alexandra calls it "Your healing place"), as I listened to my comrades speak about thier losses and experiences, I realized I had closed the box and put it on a high shelf.  The one with the memories of Samantha and her death.  Slowly as I put more and more things on my shelf it got shoved further to the back so that I didn't have to see it every time I opened that cabinet.  Then I kind of forgot it was there.
You might think, well if it's not hurting, don't go!  Leave that box closed!  But like I said it wasn't peace, as if I had closed it and said to myself "I don't need to look in there right now" and put it in the vault.  It was more of a gradual neglect.  I do need that box still.  I need to know that I'm not crazy.  I had another daughter!  Samantha was here!  And I miss her.  Not in the same way I did, but in a new and different way that is real.
Thank you my friends at MHP for helping me reconnect with my daughter, Samantha.