As summer creeps in, so do the shadows of time, of grief. It’s as if the body has annual remembrance rituals honoring what was lost. My remembrance days begin as the days grow. I feel it in my bones. The long evening shadows that fade as the fireflies silently light up the dusk bring me ever closer to the shadows and aching in my heart for the little girl who should have been. The desire to weep overtakes me in deep tides and tears flow more freely as the temperatures rise and the birds call to one another through the rustling leaves.

The ‘reminder children’ born around my Lucy’s birth grow and thrive as they glide to the next milestones she’ll never reach. I face their images now with a melancholy curiosity, marveling at the length of their shining locks or taking note of the continuing cherubic chubbiness of their hands and little forearms. As they all begin to turn three, I’m wistfully imagining my sweet toddler girl traipsing around in the summertime shadows of the backyard, singing nonsensical tunes in a bell-like voice. I yearn for her though I never had the chance to know her in this way.

Even as I celebrate the coexisting joy ever present in life, my now familiar companion, Grief, grasps my fingertips tightly and skips me down the stony path of broken dreams. It is there, in the warm sunbeams of Summer, where I sit for awhile, breathing in the memories, misplaced wishes, and everything that might have been.