Jason is out at softball and for the first time I am on my own for an entire evening.  I don't like it.  I can feel my thoughts going places I do not want them to go and while I keep trying to chain back into their little corner of my brain they are pulling harder and harder to get free.  If I was certain I believed in a yetzer harah I would think it was specifically trying to lead me down the path to self annihilation.  I won't give in to it- not tonight and hopefully not ever.  I just refilled all my scripts so I know there is well more than enough medication in the house to do it and it would likely be just like going to sleep and not waking up to any more heart ache, but I think, more like I hope, I have moved beyond that stage.

I know ow that there is still reason to get up.  My Channah needs me and though I might miss my Gabbi horribly, I can not turn away from what is right in front of me for what I can never have.  It is like a spoiled child saying if I can't have the toy I want I don't want to play with any of the toys- even if there are other perfectly good toys surrounding me.  It was ok while I was a child, still not in control of my emotions, but as I move towards more of a grade school stage of mourning I need to learn to share and get along with what I have.

I suppose the next stage will be adolescence where my emotions and hormones will be so out of whack no one will ever know what to expect of me.  Hopefully I will be the sort of emotional adolescent who watches and learns from the adults around me can be good influences and grow up to be a mature adult who can handle my emotions on my own with strength and sensibility.

I can still see and feel the void inside me where Gabbi should be.  It still looks like a long dark tunnel with no end in sight.  But onece in a while now I can get a small whiff of fresh air coming through the tunnel tell me there is an end somewhere in the distance and around the bend.  If I just keep myself going a little bit longer than maybe I will see the tiny speck of light that tells me the end of the darkness is in sight.  Even once I exit the tunnel, it will always be there.  A dark and terrifying place that my brain will return to from time to time whether I want it to or not- but I will also know that if I try I can put the tunnel back into it's box in the corner of my mind for a little while and keep walking in the sunshine.

I can see myself, years from now, walking in the sunshine hand and hand with my Channah.  Each of us with our own lives, our own desires, and our own memories.  While mine will always include that tiny face I saw only once in the operating room at Ein Karem, why should hers include decades of an eema to sad to move forward.

My Gabbi I will always love you and miss you and cherish the 8 months we had together.  And I know in your own way you will be there with us in that field filled with sunshine.  But you need to understand that for your sister's sake I neeed to find my way out of this darkness.  I know you would have loved her ad do not want her to live with an eema who is sad forever.

From tonight my dear Gabbi I am going to try to move forward.  I don't know how well it will work, but I am going to try.  Please God there will be more children- not to take your place- no one could ever do that, but to bring even more light and happiness into my life and to make the tunnel seem shorter and brighter.

Please my Gabbi, I truly believe you sit on my heavenly father's lap where he is tickling you and giving your beautiful neshama treats only a pure soul like yours, untouched by the evils of this world, can appreciate.  Please my Gabbriella Galit, take a moment to whisper in his ear the please of your mother, your father and your sister.  Take the power of your namesakes and be a force to be reckoned with.  Take the power of a woman who was able to rebuild her family from total destruction into a family living in Israel doing their best to believe that God has only our best at heart no matter how painful it may be.  Take power from the man who was the model of "if not me than who" and shatter the calmness of the heavens with waves of prayer so strong that the almighty can not ignore them.

It is said that Rachel cries for her children, and I promise you my Gabbi it will always be so- but in return I beg of you that you cry for me too.  Cry to our heavely father that he grant me the desires of my soul at the wishes of my heart.  Cry out to him that it better that your sister not be alone, and that your parents have someone else with whom to share the love we had reserved for you- that it not fester and go to waste somewhere in this long tunnel from which we can not exit.  Beg that we all find our way to the sunlight so that we might see the glory that is his overall plan and that we see only open and understandable brachot from here on out.

Cry for me my Gabbi and I promise, I will try to stop crying so  much for you.