What might have been

I was visiting my nail tech today as I continue in my determination to grow and maintain my nails, as Charlie would have wished. If only she were still here, I would take her with me for those nail appointments. She had the most beautiful fingernails.

While in the salon, there was a young highschool graduate getting her hair and makeup done for prom. Her hair was a long, soft brunette, beautifully highlighted and set in soft flowing curls, just as Charlie’s would have been.

My tears are, likewise, flowing as I write this. For these are just two small examples of the daily moments parents like me go through.

You see, when we lose a child, we mourn both what was and what could - should - have been. Charlie had planned, in the moments when she thought she might give this thing called life a go, to take an extra year and so 2024 would have been her graduation year. I am happy and wish all the best to all those young people about to embark on the next step in their lives. I also grieve the beautiful, wickedly smart girl who will never graduate, never attend a prom as she would have done, no doubt in a soft chiffon pink dress, never slay at university, which she could have done, never become the social justice fighting lawyer that she wanted to be.

As Charlie told me in one short moment of positivity, the LGBTQ community has gained much under the law, but there is so much more that needs to be done to secure human rights, particularly for transgender individuals. That, Charlie said, must be why she was put on this Earth. Since she died, the fight has, arguably, become even more difficult and urgent.

For the rest of our days I and grieving parents like me will feel the pain of loss at every moment that reminds us of what we, and they, are missing. Those moments can be unpredictable and yet so predictable because we experience them every day. We cry at every celebration, because they are not here for the experience. We cry when we are reminded of what they will never be or do.

This is just one reason why our child may have died, but our grief never will. We carry and feel it. Every. Fecking. Day.