He would be about the same age...

I often distance myself now from 4 year old's, it was once 3 year olds and before that, 2 year olds... it's tough being uneasy around innocent children because they are the age David 'would be'. I only knew 3 or 4 people that had babies about the same time and I rarely, if never, see them or their children. Not for that reason, just because our lives took different paths. I was out this weekend and ran into a old co-worker that had a little girl the same time I had David, we were out around the same time giving birth.

I remember after David died our desks were together, our backs to one another but we shared an office space. Her daughter's pictures would change with the seasons, her daughter near flowers in the spring, in the pool at summer, her first birthday blowing out candles and so on... my son's pictures stayed the same... 6 months old... in late fall. They never changed, they never moved and even though C grew, I never changed his pictures out either because I knew I couldn't change David's... so C stayed 3 and 1 month for about a year and a half.

I would sob and read the bible at my desk, I would keep things of David's on my desk and journal freely when I felt like it. My desk quickly became a memorial after I returned to work. I never cared about the girl behind me and what she made of the whole thing until one day she leaned over my desk and said, "you have to stop crying and move on, you're young and you'll have more, you have to move on and take all these pictures down, it's hard for me to look at them".

I was so heartbroken, her pictures were the hard ones to look at, her coming in everyday and being fine and listening to her talk all day about what Blain was doing was what was really difficult. Did she think it would be easier for a mother to just forget her child existed and move forward... from then I called David 'my goldfish' when talking about him in front of her. She thought of him as such, just something I had that died... so flush it down the toilet, get over it and get a new one already.

I have never seen her since I left that job in February of 2007 so it's been about 2 and half years. Her daughter was with her, she was in a dress, running around with no care of who I was or why I was talking to her mother. She looked sweet and whimsical, happy and kind. I thought- 'Gosh, that's how old David would be'. David would be here beside me running into her and he wouldn't care who she was or why I was talking to her, he would be tall and talking and kind and happy. He would be as big as her daughter and if he was here I might not hate this woman as much as I do and I might not want so badly to run away and wish I had never met her.

I felt the pain rushing in the second I saw her and I thought nothing could hurt more than remembering how mean she had been, then I looked down at her beautiful daughter and I stood... corrected.