This is Foster Care

As I dramatically tiptoed out of the master bathroom to slip into bed as quietly as possible,  the tiny noises of my own movements became a mocking laughter as they echoed around in the unoccupied space of the empty crib in the corner of my room. No one is sleeping there, tonight.

I do not need to tiptoe

I do not have a baby here any more.

It's awful and weird. It is hard when friends and family who never met him see us and think we are a complete set, or talk like he never happened, or that this was just a temporary task or crusade that is done.  We were eight. They don’t understand that we are not seven and we sheepishly have no rights or means to explain the parts they missed.  

But the hardest is when I forget. Not that he was here, but that he isn’t still here. I panicked at the playground last week when I glanced over at our picnic blanket and spun in a circle surveying the grass and bark chips of the park with “where’s my baby?!” and only a blink later, remembered and wonder how I could forget, again, that he isn't even here? 

Here I am on a Saturday night, wondering that again. My carefully quiet tiptoe dance through my bedtime routine suddenly feels like an awkward exhibition.  And even though no one was even there to catch my silly routine, I feel vulnerably spotlighted and silly, and shamefully stupid for forgetting that I am, in fact tiptoeing for no one.  My face is hot with embarrassment. 

Oh how I miss the fuzzy head and tiny dark brown eyes of the lightest sleeper ever born. He was my biggest fan. He was my bedside audience who never got enough of my company. 

I don't need to tip toe any more. I can brush my teeth with the bathroom door open and turn on the light and actually flush when I get up to pee in the middle of the night. I can pray out loud next to my bed instead of in my closet. I can open my squeaky dresser drawers. I can use a bedside lamp and read in bed.   It feels awkward to forget I can do those things now. Like I've stepped out onto a stage to perform the act I've practiced and prepared so many times before, only  to be met with empty seats and dead air in the theatre when the curtain rises.  

I am so sad this show is over.  It had a 10+ month run. Every single day was a "hell week" frenzy of trying to catch up. But I played the part with everything I had, and after plenty of bad reviews from critics who shared their opinions---though I never set out to impress them anyway---It's curtain call and the only applause I wish to hear is from a baby who still hasn't developed the ability to clap. The room, the crib, and my arms are heavy with empty.

An empty-full. So full I'm weighed down to breaking, aching, bursting, cheering, cracking, shouting, weeping, melting, grieving love.  

I am so heavy-empty-full of love.  

I exit the stage and take my seat. I will be in the audience for a season, comforting the tender young hearts in my home while they grasp an understanding of the scene change. I am watching and cheering and hoping and always wondering about that alternate ending, and waiting for call backs to play the role again.