For Tilda and her family #MatildaMae

I ought to have some words.

If anyone should have some words, it should be me.

Everyone else can write a letter and express how much Matilda Mae is missed. Everyone else can say how present she has been in all our lives this year, how much her life and loss has changed them, made them appreciate life differently, pushed them along new paths.

Everyone else knows what to say.

What do you say to miss and honour a star of the sea when you already see starlight in every tree and on every horizon?

What do you say when you know it makes all the difference and no difference at all to know your baby is remembered?

What do you say when you’ve walked the path, the valley of the shadow of death, and found that no amount of steps will ever bring you to your baby?

What do you say when you wish you could give solace but you know you can do nothing more than abide, remember, speak, hear.

What do you say when loss has left you so fragile and brittle around the edges that you can’t even always do that?

What do you say to people on the anniversary of the day that the tears began? When all laughter would henceforth have a caveat? When joy would always thence be taken with an in-breath and a firm set of the chin?

What do you say when you know how it feels to hunt for your child in the swish of the grass, the shine of the moon, the rustle of leaves, the bob of the daffodil? And never find them. When a fleeting glimpse is a trick of the light, a slight of hand, universes colliding through air that will never slice just right to see each other again.

What do you say?

Well. You just say something. Because nothing would be worse.

Jennie. David. William. Esther. Tilda.

You should be together. I am so very sorry you are not.