The Empty Space.

I am very lucky. Every day I get to wake up next to a warm little body. I have the chance to watch the soft flushed cheeks, the long dark lashes on eyes closed, dreaming, the chubby little hands gently closed on themselves like flowers...and a few drops of milk rolled in the corner of the glossiest lips on the cutest little mouth. Every day I take it all in... and I feel the empty space on the other side of the bed. For a moment, I pause. I wonder who would have woken up first... what eyes would have watched me and observed their sibling mischievously, ready to devour another day. Then I hear slightly older footsteps, a head full of curls appear with a smile, laughter, a tornado of energy, she hugs her sister and wakes her up with tickles. The day begins... and while I carry a child in each arm, the empty space quietly follows.

Throughout the day there are laughters, there are tears, there are precious, fleeting moments. Everyday milestones are reached, goals are achieved, some dreams are put on hold, some hopes have to be planned before becoming certainties, life happens. Life carries on. Life, so precious, so beautiful, so cruel. Life only cares for the livings, it doesn't hit the halt button and you have to follow, you can let yourself float but close your eyes and you might miss a rare instant... and in that moment, while you marvel at the purity, beauty and try to make a mental not of every component, the empty space sits beside you. You can't see it, but you can feel it... It is part of you. No one else knows. And for a moment you indulge it. You see this moment through the filter of emptiness, you desperately wish to hear a laugh you never heard, and never will. While you count the pattern of two little sets of feet on the floor, you feel the inexistent vibration of another tiny step... You wonder the smell of another little head... and feel the empty space in a hug for two that could easily have embraced three.

Sometimes at night, the empty space feels more present. It doesn't do anything. It is just there. And that is when, alone, in silence, I let the tears flow. I visit the moments that will never were and will never be. The first hold we never had, those sweet moments of just feeling. Watching you take your first step, walking away with excitement. The playtimes with your sisters, and falling asleep close, fingers brushing...The first friends, holidays... first love, overhearing you talk about it to your siblings... first job, first heartbreak, graduation... career... the few moments on your wedding day adjusting a bow or tie and wondering where the time went? And there I stop. Because the time went nowhere... and looking further is too painful... there won't be little ones of little one. There won't be an exciting phone call in the middle of the night... there is no time. It was all spent before I even had a chance to appreciate it. And that is my main regret.

So I stay here. I feel the empty space. There are no words, some tears, no comfort. No one will ever see you... I will never see you... And your only presence is in your absence. No one knows how much there is in this empty space.