memorials

Yesterday I did something no parent should ever have to do.

I ordered a tombstone for my daughter's grave.

Strangely, it wasn't the hardest thing I did yesterday. It was harder to stand at my eldest brother's grave, the brother who was stillborn. I cried because his was the only grave without a name: just "Baby Boy" and our last name. My parents hadn't named him, and it seemed so sad. When I pray to him I just call him "Brother."

Harder still was that moment at the park when that little girl ran up to me.

She was wearing pink shoes. Pink shoes with hearts.