Petitefemme

Petite femme- little woman...that's what she calls herself now.

6 is the magic number; the age at which she has begun to truly feel that same loss I've felt since you died 6 years ago.

Before then, she was cognizant of your absence and aware that it was just she and I but not like this. The first hint I had of it was the discovery that, while some of her classmates didn't have a father in the home, literally every other student had a mom at home.

Then came Mother's Day, which this year just so happened to fall on the anniversary of your death. They held a Mother's Day convocation and tea time a couple of days before then. Neither of her grandmother's could make it and I absolutely couldn't get the time off of work. Between the sick time I've had to take for us both over the last year, I just didn't have that option... So I felt like absolute shit that morning already. Then to have her wake up with tears in her eyes fighting and screaming because she didn't want to leave for school and have to go to the convocation that day.

Of course, I had to make her go.

When I picked her up from school later that day she told me all about a breakdown she had in the middle of the convocation. A few of the teachers consoled her and all, so it wasn't as though she had no one to be there for her but I'd never seen her so emotional over your death.

I thought it was hard enough to feel that loss for myself but it's much worse seeing our little girl suffer through the same...

I usually identify as an atheist but...if there really is any part of you left on this earth...please be with her. She needs us more than ever now.