Just An Earring

It’s strange what you attach to your baby when they are no longer here.

The boys have memory boxes at home.

I have their first outfits, they first shoes, and little bits and pieces of things that they loved and that mean a lot to us for them to have when they are older.

Rhianna has one too. It has her cards from the flowers at her funeral. It has her medical file and her hospital items. It has her pictures and things her brothers have drawn her. It has her star certificates and little things like that.

It doesn’t have an outfit as she never wore one of them that we brought her. It doesn’t have the usual things, but it has her things.

And she has her special place, the beach.

She never went there.

She never experienced the beach.

But it is her place.

If any of us want to feel close to her we head to the beach.

And she has other things too.

She has her things on her shelves at home and she has the things that we keep close to us. Mainly jewellery items that we associate with her.

Her daddy has a bracelet with the kids names on.

I have a necklace, earrings and bracelet with her birth stone in and I have a Pandora mother and daughter charm on my bracelet.

They are things that I say are her things.

They are my special pieces of jewellery that are subtle but always are associated with her.

Today I lost an earring.

One of her earrings.

And it instantly filled me with dread.

I could have cried on the spot.

It’s such a silly thing.

A foolish sentimental thing.

If you step away and think about it it was never hers, it will never be hers.

It has always been mine.

And it is her birthstone that is all it is something that could easily be replaced by a quick trip to a jewellers to buy another set of earrings.

It would be that simple.

But it didn’t feel that simple when I lost that earring.

It is her earrings.

They were brought by her daddy specifically because they are her birthstone.

I have worn them every day since.

They are her earrings.

And loosing one of them today made me so upset.

It is such a silly thing.

But such an important thing.

I found it after about an hour.

But the fact that I thought I had lost it.

The fact that something that never belonged to her but was so associated to her was lost for even just a small amount of time filled me with dread.

It is amazing the things that you get after you have lost a child that instantly become so sentimental and so important to you.

That the thought of loosing them fills you with fear and upset.

Because it was never hers.

It will never be hers.

But it is totally hers.

And will always be hers.