One-third of a year

It has been four months today.  One-third of a year has passed since Zachary died.  He would be four and a half months old. 

Every cell in my body grieves Zachary's too-brief life.  The enormity of his loss, of what has been taken from our family, presses on me incessantly.  Brief distraction, when I acknowledge something other than my grief - a conversation, a grocery list, a game with C.T. - only brings me back more acutely to the crushing reality. The memories of his blissfully healthy week are almost completely overshadowed by the memory of the torture he endured, his lifeless body in my arms, by the Zachary void stretched out in the years ahead of us.  I have to force myself to breathe in and out, to trudge my feet, one in front of the other.  I feel tired and desperate and so very alone. 

Life goes on all around me.  Oblivious to Zachary's moment-to-moment absence.

No one can carry this Zachary-shaped burden of grief but me.  I am his mother.