Do Not Weep

I know I don't have much of a right to grieve over certain things, especially when they're one hundred percent my fault.  But there's a part of me that feels broken today, that has felt broken since yesterday.  Holding a child in my arms, imagining what it might have been like to hold my own child in such a way. What kind of person would I have become if I had had a child?  Could I have changed?  I definitely would never have met Nathan, and I would've been linked to Johnny for life.  That broken feeling, though, comes from the knowledge that I had something beautiful that I hated and then lost.  That knowledge, more than anything, makes me wish that I could go back to those days and change things.  What if I never have another chance?  


I love this poem, and tell myself to believe it will be what that child will say someday even though it makes my heart ache to think it:


Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft star-shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.
- Mary E. Frye