Deferred Pain

It happened again today. Infant loss in everyday life. It's because really it's an every day part of life. Babies dying. But it hurts. Like a bruise that's only painful when touched, it lays there in my heart, dormant most of the time. But always there.
It used to hit me like a punch in the stomach, and I'd get sick all over.
Then, as a year passed, it turned more into this lingering sadness that welled up into tears.
Then it became unpredictable like a windy day. Sometimes the reaction barely showed. Sometimes it would blow in fierce and strong, bringing painful sobs. Sometimes I would see the detestation afterwards, laying in bed at the end of the day feeling a darkness lingering over my soul.
Now it doesn't hurt like a punch in the stomach.
But it still hurts.
And it always catches me by surprise. when a friend calls and says that her brother's lost his baby at seven months into the pregnancy.
Or I pick up a book and find the first chapter centrs around a baby's death.
When I read the name Grace written somewhere.
The ache is dull sometimes, but it's always there. And sometimes the sharpness is all I can handle.
Sometimes I just have to cry.
And sometimes I carry it inside and don't realize it until the next day or days afterwards, when I've just felt down without a reason. It hurts less every year. But I think it will always hurt, that sting of death. That burden of grief that's settled in my soul. And I think it's OK for it to be like that. Because I know one day it won't be anymore. And missing her makes me long for it even more.