Something's Missing...

We just moved into our new home.  It's a beautiful home: 2600 square feet, four bedrooms, two bathrooms.  I am in love with it and the neighborhood.  Moving has been the usual stress, compounded by the fact that the average temperature was over 100 degrees.  There have been a few hiccups along the way and the usual expenses, but we managed okay.  We've moved the furniture, our personal belongings, some junk and gone back to the old place a few times just to make sure we got everything.

I have been busy unpacking as well.  I feel like I've got the house in fairly good working order.  There are a few boxes that still need to be unpacked and Bill hasn't gotten the stereo or computer situated, but he will.  I've wondered around the last few days looking to see what doesn't fit or is out of place.  I've moved things around and then moved some of them back.  Things look great, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't in it's place.

And then I found it.  The box.  It was in it's usual place, at least, in the place I've kept it since I had Bill make it.  Under the passenger's seat in the Suburban.  I've known it's there for the last four years but it startled me this morning to find it as I was vacuuming out the truck.  The tears immediately came.  I had to go in and get a drink of water and sit down.

Then, I had to look inside of the box.  You see, I haven't looked in that box since the day I put all of the contents inside and put it under the passenger seat.  I wanted it with me, watching over me, no matter where I went.  We agreed that we'd bury it when we got a home of our own.  As I pulled it out, the lid toppled off and I HAD to look inside.  Everything was just the same:  little green booties, hat, mitts;  forms and paperwork from the hospital and a couple of hospital bracelets;  two ultrasound pictures and two pregnancy test strips with + signs.  All the things in this world that I have to prove that one day in late May, 2007, I lost my precious baby.

I'm going to bury that box in my new yard.  She will be out there, watching her sisters and their new home.  She will be out there and we will be in here.  The family that will never be complete, who will always have something missing because SOMEONE is missing.  Zoe Evelyn will be forever waiting until the rest of us no longer need an Earthly home and we can join her, in her home, out there.