We had allowed it to slip far out of hand when my husband had an idea. “Why don’t we hibernate?”

I don’t see it until we write that second list. Placing it next to the first, we see what we did not glimpse in the midst of time passing.

I have tried not to write about this. It is so hard. So unspeakably hard. A mother and father staring into death. A precious girl found without breath.

Behind us the clock went about its business ticking away at our day, but something in me sunk — a moment weighed down to make its mark on time.

Each time I would place pen to paper to write about my child, I would ask myself if this was a tale of fiction.

He caught my nervous upward glance. Dark clouds pressed in on two sides. And then he turned to our son.