Tuesday, February 21, 2012
I slowed down today as I drove by a building that used to be the MotherWear nursing wear store. I went in there about nine years ago to buy nursing bras. I remember the woman coming into the dressing room with me and measuring my round, pregnant body and recommending that I buy a D cup bra. I laughed at her, and bought Cs. They were all too small in the end.
As I drove by the store, my thoughts strayed to the history of a building: that I had walked, once, with a living baby girl in my womb, through the door of that building and carelessly walked around, shopping. I didn't know what would happen to me, or to my baby girl. I only wanted to buy a bra. I had been there. She had been there.
The light turned red, and back to green. As I left the store in my rear-view mirror it occurred to me that this mini-memory and little thought conversation I'd had with myself was a perfect example of how the brain hangs on to the tiniest memories in freeze-frame when a baby dies. I thought about how many hundreds of places I'd gone while pregnant with the other four children and how those memories have been sifted to the back of the file drawer, useless, and will never need to be resurrected.
But for Charlotte, what else do I have? It's all fair game.