Too Late

My daughter was coherent for five hours or so. Blinking, grabbing, stretching and aware. My mother and our preacher saw her like this. Her daddy saw her, eyes staring back at him and her blinking. He tried to get me up to the N.I.C.U. to see her, as the doctors said that brain damage would likely manifest before very long.
I was in recovery. I was getting blood. I refused a catheter and insisted on getting up shortly after an emergency cesarean to pee. I had to get up, for her...I had to prove I was strong enough to be moved from my floor.
I needed to be with her.
I didn't get there fast enough. I never saw her with her eyes both open and functioning. I never saw her blink I only saw what they termed 'reflexive movements'.
I am grateful to have met and held her, to have caressed her soft dark hair and kiss her porcelein face. I give thanks for her strong heart, and the fact I was able to see it beating on the monitor for hours in her hospital room.
But I was too late, for those few hours of her life that she was truly 'here'. I was there for what we called her 'one foot in Heaven and one foot on earth' phase.
I only hope that she heard me read to her and when I would quietly sing. I wonder if she knew I was her mommy when I was with her, when I held her?
These thoughts and questions still come up from time to time. They are however, pointless because they have no answer in this world.





(spoiler)

K and I are planning a getway that ahem...just might change our family dynamic in a big way......