The Ramp

I have something that is unusually difficult to do. I do it three times a week. I did it before you died and after. It was not hard before, but now it breaks me. I deliver food to the hospital on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. I go through the back, up a long ramp. It is the same hospital where I delivered you. I hated going there after, but I also used it to think about you. I know that you were there. I walked you down the long stark hallway in my belly. I hummed to you and listened for the echo. After, one day I had to deliver the baby cakes that they give to the new parents getting ready to take home new babies, living babies. I did not receive such a cake. I hate taking them there. It's a constant reminder. After, one day as I arrived I watched a somber pick-up being made. The morticians had come, they were returning to the herse with a body covered in blue sheets. The body was on a gurney, the body belonged to an adult. Thank God. I watched as they used the same ramp I had walked up and down with you as you grew. And then I realized that someone else had walked you down that ramp and put you into a car, Frost. I don't know if that stranger carried you or rolled you out. You were only four and a half pounds so I must assume that they carried you out. I hope that the stranger, who had the privilege of holding you, was gentle with your little body. Your Mother and Father never got to carry you outside into the face of nature, that stranger had our moment with you and probably didn't even realize it. We dreamed of it, it was his job. I walked up the ramp today wondering if the people I encountered knew how extremely shattered I was becoming inside, holding in tears and pretending that walking that path was the easiest thing. I have to walk the path of your only walk outside everyday. Should I embrace this, or be crushed by it? Somedays I hum as though you are there with me again, other times I sob as though this was the place where you were torn away from me forever. It is a very hard place to be, I think that there must be many, many spirits along that path. I am living. I walk upon cement that has felt the wheels of death. I feel its finality and frailty. In most of the places I spend my time, people have not died. In this place that I go three times a week, the number of lives vanished is overwhelming. It's a very different place to be. I will try to hum there more often.
Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.