It's Too Late

My baby lived longest in my mind. The nurse handed me the box and told me it was better not to look inside. All I could think when I looked at it was, coffins should never be that small. She told me that it was better to remember what he had looked like yesterday, when his heart still beat. I had placed my hand on his small chest and felt it myself. It was strong. Despite all the tubes snaking in, out and around him, he would survive.

I had felt it, deep in my bones, known that he would live. He had to. He was strong, and I was strong in turn. He would live today and tomorrow and next week and next year and in thirty years, I would speak of that moment at his wedding. I could feel his heartbeat, thudding against his ribs like an earthquake, a promise inside him, and I knew everything would be okay.

I was wrong. He was gone in the night. One moment the dull thump was there, the next, never to be felt again. I did not cry. You are a very strong woman, I was told. I did not feel strong. In life, on Earth, my baby was gone. But within me, he would live forever.

And I went home alone, arrived to no one. It was just me and the box. And I don’t sleep that night, just sat and stared at the box. She told me not to open it. I was still sane enough to understand why not, so the next morning it’s cremated. And if a tiny casket was enough to rip my heart out and tear it into forty-six pieces, a tiny urn staples it back together and burns it on a pyre. My chest still hurts the same.

And I still don’t sleep, but when my eyes happen to flutter shut in the day, when my body aches to join my son in the After Death, I just see him. Him, a frail but strong infant. Him, growing up and going to school and playing at the beach and drawing on walls and complaining to me and hugging me and getting married and having children and the pain of all the possibilities makes my eyes sting and my hands tremble. 

It feels like the cruelest trick in the world. I’ll never see his smile. Never know who he’d be, yet always knowing it’d be the most wonderful thing in the universe, almost too wonderful to handle.

And it feels like a lie, to say you’re a mom when you’ll never hear your son say it. When you live in an empty home, when you go to work the same way you did before him, when you play pretend, when you have nothing and no one that would believe you.

And in my imagination, I stand alone on an empty page. You can erase the words but the meaning will be there forever. And I am completely hollow, yet my chest feels full, craving the one thing I can never have. In my imagination, voices scream in my head, let me go! It’s too late, it’s too late, it’s too late!

And I have to act like everything is Perfectly Fine during the day, but when I go home at night and stare at the urn, stare at the empty crib, the brand new baby shoes, I know I’ll never be Fine again. Grief grabbed onto everything I own, everything I am. Now everything smells like sadness to me.

And in my imagination, I missed my chance, running after a plane that's left the ground. Fall to my knees and weep, but nothing will change. Let me go, the voices whisper then shriek, it's too late, it's too late, it's too late!

And I smile some sort of grimace when people ask how I’m doing and say I'd rather not answer. In the office, I have my very own cubicle now, and it feels like a sick joke. Here’s your consolation prize, the universe says, no baby, but your very own cubicle. Now no one has to watch you cry.

And in my imagination, I am stuck waiting for a train to come to my non-existent station. To take me to the place just out of reach. So I can see him. But the voices sob broken words in my ears, it's too late, it's too late, it's too late.

And my desk is void of any evidence of life, save for two pictures of him, an ultrasound and the only photo of him alive, covered in afterbirth, barely ten seconds old. “No plants?” a coworker had asked when he visited my cubicle one morning. I just shook my head and stared at the photos. Plants die and wither away, like he did. Like I want to.

And now when I think, it’s only about him. You were so close to me, I could reach out and touch you. But now that you’re gone, when I reach, I will touch nothing but the emptiness of air and the absence of your soul. Someone had heard me mumbling one day. “That’s very poetic,” it sounded mocking, “maybe you should publish a collection.” But I don’t care about comments like that anymore.

And I hate the inevitable, ignore the changing leaves, but nothing will stay the same without him. It's too late, it's too late, it's too late, the voices speak and when I open my eyes,  I see his face. 

You have to let me go.

Author's Note

While I was writing this, I cried. The story is based off a poem I wrote (quite a few of my short stories are adapted from my poetry) and I included a few lines within the story. I'd love feedback.