Foward

The first of the morning light pulls Sarah from a deep sleep. She stretches and rolls over, glancing at the alarm clock. The bright red lines read 6:45. Behind the clock, a dark wooden square frames the photo of a young girl with brown hair and a wide smile. Sarah reaches out, grazes it with her fingertips and then climbs out of bed, careful not to wake her husband Adam, who is curled up on the right side.
She makes her way downstairs to the kitchen and starts the coffee pot; listening to the gurgling sound and watching the sky brighten as the day begins.
She looks around. The kitchen is too neat. The counter tops are clear and the refrigerator is absent of the child drawings that once dominated the doors. Instead, sympathy cards cover them. Cards decorated with crosses and flowers and that compassionate phrase "Sorry for your loss". Sarah goes over to take them down. Nine months is long enough.
Once the brewing noises stop, Sarah pours a mug that has "World's Best Mom" written across it. After adding a liberal amount of creamer, she goes out onto the back porch to great Sally, their golden retriever.
"Hey girl," she says, giving the dog a pat on the head.
Sarah sits down on the porch steps with Sally right beside her and attempts to mentally prepare herself for the day ahead. She's not even sure if she and Adam are ready for this step forward, but staying away from social interactions and mourning their lost child night and day is not an option anymore. Neither of them may be completely ready. However, it is time to move past the tears, anger, and agony.
It's difficult to avoid thinking about that morning when her normal life was shattered and this new, unfamiliar pain invaded her and Adam's marriage. That pain was unbearable. Waking up every morning without her daughter's dimpled smile to greet her was not something she thought she and Adam would ever get used to. He handled the pain in a different way than she did. She almost shut down. Adam, however, kept calm and remained a rock of resilience. The look that developed on his face as he went back to the work routine though, expressed the pain that he felt.



She finishes her coffee and pulls Sally closer to her side, burying her face in the retriever's soft fur.
"Sally, are you ready to have another child in the house?"
The dog gives her that dog stare that almost seems human like and attempts to lick Sarah's face. The back door creaks open and Adam joins her on the porch steps.
"Morning," she says.
"What time did you climb out of bed this morning?" he asks with a yawn.
"About a quarter before seven."
He hugs her close to him. "Are you nervous about today?"
"I'm not sure," she replies. "I keep telling myself that we are ready to take this step forward, and then some part of me isn't sure if we are really ready. Is it too soon?"
"Sarah it's been nine months. We can't stop living just because we lost our child. Becoming foster parents does not mean that we are forgetting our child. We are being given a gift," he says.
"I'm not meaning to sound ungrateful for this opportunity. I'm just not sure how I absolutely feel about it, even after all this time."
"I know it's not going to be a simple change for you Sarah. This was something we had thought about doing even before the shooting".
Sarah looks at him. "I am also aware that it's not going to be an easy change. But how will I handle being a mother again? That thought is what scares me the most."
He frowns. "Are you worried about taking care of this child? Or about loving her?"
"I honestly don't know Adam.
They fall silent then, their separate thoughts taking them away from each other. Sarah's thoughts wander back to the day that she found out that she was pregnant. The excitement that she and Adam felt is indescribable. There was some fear about becoming parents because it was their first child. Everyone from their parents, coworkers, and neighbors offered advice and congratulations, however, various concerns remained. But the day Emily was born; all their worries became microscopic as they fell into the new parent routine. Suddenly, their daughter was growing up. She started walking and talking, then she went off to preschool and then kindergarten. The first day of first grade is fresh in Sarah's mind. The red dress with flowers and the purple backpack with hearts. She stood on the porch and watched her daughter run towards the school bus with a wide smile on her face. Those memories will forever remain.
So too will the phone call from the police that morning in May telling her to get down to her daughter's school because an incident had occurred and they needed all the parents. An incident he said. Not tragedy or massacre, but incident.
She is still harboring over that word choice when Sally starts barking loudly, breaking them out of their trances. They both get up and go inside.


After breakfast and a shower, Sarah goes into her daughter's old room and sits down on the little kid bed. She runs her hand over the soft bedspread and hugs a stuffed ladybug to her chest as she takes in a room that she doesn't recognize anymore.
Most of the toys have been cleared out, but the book shelf remains with all of the books that they used to read together. The dresser is empty, as is the closet.
Sarah refused to enter this room after their loss. She and Adam slept in this bed the day of the shooting. After being told that their daughter was not one of the survivors, they made their way through the chaos of desperate parents and crying children and somehow, found a way home.
Around 1 a.m., a young officer came to the front door. His serious face and tired eyes held too much emotion and told them all they needed to know.
After that, Sarah lost track of all time. Days blurred together. Family and friends stopped by with the usual sympathy one expects when there is a loss of life. The cards and flowers were endless, the amount of food overwhelming. Sarah could not bring herself to do much of anything. She did not know how to respond to people and she could not bring herself to eat.
Eventually, she started eating meals with Adam again. That February, she found herself packing up Emily's room. After that, both of them took care to not be in here much. It was filled with too many memories that might bring about an emotional breakdown at any time.
Now, Sarah just felt numb being in here again. There was some regret later on about putting Emily's toys out of sight. She knew, however, that it would be inappropriate to have another child stay in this room surrounded by another's possessions.
She and Adam had first thought about selling their house and attempting a fresh start somewhere else. They had made this house into a home, though, and leaving did not seem like the right choice for them.
Sarah puts the ladybug down and goes downstairs, looking for something to be cleaned or organized before the social worker arrives. The living room looks like a picture off of Pinterest. Sarah misses the books that Adam and Emily always had stacked all over the coffee table. The T.V. used to play nothing but cartoons and Disney movies, but has stayed silent the last few months.
There is a novel lying next to an armchair and Sarah attempts to read it while watching the clock above the T.V.
In about an hour, her life will change. This is another step forward, but it is the biggest step that she has taken in nine months. She expects criticism from people who do not believe that she is emotionally ready. They also may say that it is inappropriate to become a foster parent after losing your child so suddenly. It is not the time to listen to other peoples' opinions.
Adam comes into the living room and sits across from her.
"Are you ready for this?" he asks.
She puts the book down. "I think so. I'm just trying not to fidget right now. I just want them to get here. For the waiting to be over."
He nods. "Do you think we still know how to be good parents?"
She thinks this question over. "I believe that parenting falls into that riding a bike category. You never really forget."
"What constitutes good parenting anyways?"
"I guess whatever the 'experts' or our own parents say it is, she says. "But maybe we shouldn't stress about that and just focus on giving this young girl the best home possible."
"You miss being a mom, huh?"
"Don't you miss being a dad?" she asks. "I don't know what to do with an empty nest anymore."
"I realize that, but is that reason enough to do this? Are we going to be able to put our grief away and take on the role of foster parents?"
"I think we are. And if we're not ready now, then we'll never be ready."

A little while later, they take Sally out onto the front porch. The neighborhood is quiet today and that is perfect for them. There are things about this neighborhood that Sarah never noticed when she was busy being Emily's mom.
It's time to see past those details and move towards a normal life again. It may be hard or it may seem as though she is forgetting her dead child, but those are obstacles that the two of them can deal with. The views of others do not matter. Their main focus now is the life that she and Adam can give to their new foster daughter.
She lays her head on Adam's shoulder and watches a flock of birds fervently cross the sky towards a new destination for winter. Hopefully she will take this new path in life with the same determination.