Two years and a Baby Ginger later...

"She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts." ~George Eliot

I wish. It's been two years since the worse day of my life and not only am I still wrestling with the grief, but it still has me in a pretty tight choke hold.

How can it still hurt so much? How can it still feel like it was this morning at 5:56 a.m. that she took her last breath? Life without her is...different, and I can't seem to adjust to it. I'm not angry and I harbor no resentment towards those who could not save her, nor he who chose to take her away. But it still feels so very wrong.

Baby Ginger is my saving grace today. She is all smiles, more so than usual, and offers great reassurance that her namesake is still here, smiling on us. I get the subtle hints. I went to bed last night, thinking back to that horrible, long torturous night two years ago when we sat by my mother's side watching her chest move up and down, knowing each breath could be her last. And when I woke up four or five times throughout the night to check on my sleeping baby and watching her chest move up and down, I could hear my mother telling me to focus on my hope-filled future Ginger, rather that dwelling on the nightmares of that frail, fading Ginger. And as I hold baby Ginger in my arms (I can't seem to let her go today) and I watch her smile as she drifts off to a peaceful sleep, I feel a gentle reminder that her namesake is also at peace.

The pain of my mother's death feels dark and endless. Baby Ginger brings a very bright hope for a future filled with peace and healing. It's not just her name that she is carrying on, it's her quiet beauty, her curious expressions, her love filled eyes, her hopes, her journey. My mother's work here was not done. She wanted, more than anything, to watch her grandchildren grow. Baby Ginger is here to see to that. Why else would her perfect little name have chosen her. She is a fresh start with an unfinished agenda.