Impression

She has no eyes.

I am prepared for baby Charlotte’s blindness, but the absence of eyes pierces me to the core. I hold my best friend Katie’s premature infant, born with anencephaly, ever so gently. Charlotte’s fragile, misshapen head is covered in a delicate, crocheted bonnet. I stroke the back of her transparent miniature hand. I feel her nearly weightless body pulse with each heartbeat. She does not cry.

Two couch cushions over, yet a world away, Katie holds my newborn daughter, Emily, perfectly formed and sleeping peacefully. Katie and I make eye contact, a tidal wave of unshed tears threatening behind damp lashes. We instinctively reach out one hand to touch the other’s in the space between us.

Katie and husband Paul do not know how long Charlotte might live when they take her home. I join the close circle of friends journeying to their place weekly so that Paul and Katie might escape briefly into the light. Paul calls early one morning to say Charlotte passed silently in the night.

I attend Charlotte’s funeral alone. The tiny white casket on a pedestal breaks me.

I weep for the lost baby; I weep for the miracle of my own healthy one.

At the repast, a silent cortège of church ladies circulates, bearing casseroles and grief.

 

 

 

 

Author’s note: To protect their privacy, I have changed the names of my friends and their baby in this story.