I know I’ll never forget.
How could I?
And yet, I still felt a burning need to do something or rather have something to remind me and to acknowledge where we’ve been.
Something to commemorate the tears and heartbreak, my way of memorializing five lives that never came to be.
I bought the first one just before we started our last round of IVF, a process that we were certain would work.
I carried it with me everywhere, in my pocket or purse, always within reach. I carried it for luck and love, but most of all for hope.
When the process didn’t work, I wanted to throw it against the wall with all my strength and watch it shatter, like my own heart had.
Again.
Instead, I placed it in a box on my dresser and there it stayed.
Recently I added four more just like it because it has taken on a different meaning: what could have been.
Sometimes it is agonizing just knowing they are there, but they represent a very long and grueling journey that we have not yet completed.
They represent loss.
And peace.
