Chapter 32: Breeze

Today is Friday.

It was exactly a year ago today, the last Friday of September in 2020 when I broke the news to my husband.

The weather is the same. The breeze is the same. The calm in the air is the same. Even the knots of anxiousness in my chest are the same.

And yet, so different.

Last year, I waited anxiously for my husband to come home for Jumuah, the Friday prayer. I had been testing at home on cheapies and as soon as I started seeing the two pink lines, I started putting the date and time stamp on each strip.

As soon as he left for prayer, I ran to the basement and gathered all the test strips together and taped them to a sheet of paper and folded the sheet in thirds and stuck it inside an envelope. My fingers quivered and my breath shook. I still could not believe that it was real.

I addressed the envelope to him and went to slide it into the mailbox. I sent him a message asking if he could check the mail on his way home since I was awaiting a package that had been marked as delivered but was not at the door, so it may be in the communal mailbox.

I can still hear his suspicion as he waded through the mail and came across the one addressed to him without a return label, asking me "What's this?" I still recall my "I don't know, just open it," as I waited anxiously on tippy toes for the realization to hit him.

As the gardener mows the lawn today, the air smells the same. The wind is slight and my favorite breeze of 70 degrees. It's the best kind of day. Yet, I am filled with knots of anxiousness in my chest again.

Is phantom pain of this kind a real thing? Will I experience this same feeling every last Friday of September?

I do not know how it has already been 365 days since I knew for certain that I was carrying you, my brave little one.

In a few weeks, it will be 365 days until I last felt you or carried you. I don't want the day to come. I want to rewind to that Friday afternoon where my life changed forever. Where I became Mama to your huge presence.

Oh darling, I miss you every single moment of every single day.

I miss you so much that it hurts. It is unbearable.