Breathing.

Breathing.  Basic human function, requires no thought whatsoever, just happens, right? Until now.  I spent the following 6 days forcing my breath.  Funeral arrnagements, burial plots, casket, flowers, cards, people bringing food that I coudlnt touch....breathing....it is still the hardest part of my day. Something so simple, something so basic, the hardest thing to do, and the only thing I can do.  That week, I stayed busy.  Planned the funeral, got her dressed, anything I could, clinging to every little thing that I could do...because, reality is this was the last time I'd get to take care of her.  Every day I was at the funeral home, planning, visiting...holding her hands....staring at her....trying to capture every second that I could before they were gone.  Id run my fingers through her hair, stare at her and wait for anyhting at all to move...nothing moved.  I started sleeping with her blankie, a Minnie Mouse balnket that I bought her earlier this year.  Her seahorse also frequented my room that week...it was a pink seahorse that played lullabies and lit up...we had discovered about a month earlier that it was the only way to get her to go to sleep without crying.  I went and bought us lockets...a snippet of my hair in hers, a snippet of hers in mine.  I also bought a set of "big sis little sis" necklackes, she has the one that says "Big Sis" and I kept the one that says "Little Sis" for Khaily to have when she's older.  I gave her these trinkets on my birthday, the day before  her funeral.  I hated my birthday.  I was so angry that I got 24 and she had only gotten 1.  I went with my parents to pick the flowers...they were beautiful arrangements of purple and green...that's how we would tell the kids' stuff apart...Khaily has always been pink and yellow, Khy was purple and green.  Some people have siad that they only way to continue is one day at a time...those who have been here know that its more like one breath at a time. In and out, and the hardest part is feeling like I'm wrong for doing so.  Our sole responsibility as parents is to keep our kids safe and happy...and alive...and I couldn't.  I wasn't there, I didn't know, and I feel every day like I shyould have.  That morning when I dropped off the girls, she cried...she always cried, but there was something different that morning.  I picked her back up and gave her loves while she clung to me, and then I put her down, took a deep breath, thoguht for a milisecond about taking the day off, said "she'll only cry for a second," and walked away. I walked away. I went to work, and that's it.  That's all I got. A hug, a squeeze, and to listen to her cry while I walked away.  I didn't know.  I didn't know.