Blackbird, Fly.

Posted by Anonymous.

Small Christmas lights, first red, then blue, then green, then white sent small stars of color over the ceiling where she slept. Tiny. Little hands, grasping and flexing tubes that ran into her nose. Warm among blankets that her mother brought for her. Warm among the clothes that her father bought for her. Nurses quiet and reverent in the soft lights, humming wordless songs to small babies in plastic cases.

And me.

Still wearing a scar from her exit from my body, 7 weeks to early and a lifetime too soon, for me; I sat. In the almost black of early morning, in an outside caked in the dirtiest of old snow and sharp winter air, I sat. Alone, with my daughter. For the last time. I sang quietly to her and slid my clean hands inside that incubator, pressing my lips against the side of it, willing her to feel me. One finger tracing the line of her back, one stream of tears tracing the line of my face.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
take these broken wings and learn to fly

My voice became the only one singing, as the room fell silent around me. Me and my daughter. The daughter I had failed to carry to term. The daughter I was going to permanently place in the arms of another woman, to call mother. My guilt was overwhelming in my failures to her. Failing to grow her healthy, failing to raise her. failing to be her mother.

Her dark hair, gently curling around her face, was mine, her softly curling lips, her father's. I would see none of these things day to day. To see them change as she grew, to hear her beautiful voice lilt words for the first time. To hear her cry, until her needs were met.

To be the one she cried for.

Blackbird fly
Blackbird fly

Knowing full well, that this was beneficial for her. For them. For everyone but me. My daughter sighed under my touch and moved closer. For one shining moment, I was hers and she was mine.