Everything reminds me of her. I looked desperately for signs of her in the first weeks after her death, and now the reminders close in on me and suddenly I’m frozen in place at Target, with an urge to find a cute new top for Anni. No place for that urge to go, except in hot tears down my face.

From my bed this morning hearing them sorting the gifts that were freshly placed last night, knowing they’re doing their own tally to make sure it’s all even and fair.

I also have been shopping for urns. Looking for the perfect ceramic container for Anni’s ashes. Pages and pages of options in the catalog from the morgue, and endless websites and none of them feels like Anni, and this is the worst type of shopping and also feels sacred.

She didn’t fight
She danced.
A guide
A mentor
A light
A quiet acceptance of the surgeries and doctor appointments and feeding tube and seizures
A smile on the hardest days
She entered the world “I’m here”
And exited the world “I’m not”

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

But what if I don’t want to be stronger?
What if stronger sounds
impenetrable
independent
intact
What if I want the hard things in life
to make me soft

I was having a conversation recently with a woman who works for a national non-profit that assists families impacted by MPS (the type of disease Anni has), and she asked me this question:

“What makes the difference between someone who does amazing things in the world, and someone who can’t get out of bed?”

Tears

Laughter

Vomit

Words

Shouts

Moans

Growls

Breath

All our ways our bodies turn inside out.

When you were born, I woke up with every movement, every sound, every tiny squeak or out-of-sync breath. I’d sit up in my hospital bed, no matter what time, put my hand on your chest, adjust the swaddling blanket, lay back down.

Here I am now, sitting in a chair next to your hospital bed, waking up with every movement, every whimper or sigh or irregular breath amplified by the breathing machine between us.

I knew that this was coming. At least I suspected it would. The whir of the oxygen machine, the light from the monitors illuminating her little body in a big bed. Bags of saline and medicine and food hang from the iv pole, like a medical jellyfish. Sea turtle decals on the doors and large pictures of the ocean on the bathroom wall.

I was 27 when they told me she would die before me.

She would not bury me at 89 or 92 or 99

But I would bury her at 6 or 16 or 19

 Would I put her body in the ground

Or let the ashes come home with me

I was there when he died.

Well, almost.

I had been at my parents’ house a lot of the week, keeping watch with my mom, administering morphine to my dad, trying to keep him comfortable. He couldn’t communicate what he needed, couldn’t speak at all, or even acknowledge our presence at the end. I was there all Sunday morning with them, went home for five minutes, and in the short time that I was gone, he died.

I think maybe he was playing a final joke on me.