it won't ever be real

That morning .... Was it morning?  ... I couldn't see through the haze. Could I just pretend it was the cloudiness that comes when waking from a long night's sleep? Everything was fuzzy, it looked like a dream sequence in a really bad movie. The voices, movement; it sounded like slow motion speech ... an echoing sound that was beyond comprehension.  Could this echoing noise, these voices, be speaking to me? No. I could only be dreaming. Then, I realized ... my unwilling body was carrying what was left of me, because my soul was absent from my physical being. Did I walk through the doorway ... probably not. I must have floated. I was not whole. I wasn't a person at all. I no longer existed as who I had been less than 24 hours earlier.
I don't remember anything about the ride home from the hospital. Perhaps, I had died with her. That makes sense. Nothing was real, except that I was not real. I could not live on without my baby girl.
Somehow, I was in bed. How was I suddenly here? Did I walk in, turn the corner and see our bed? Story's co-sleeper snuggled into our bed as if nothing had changed. I wasn't a ghost. I wasn't having a nightmare, because I was suddenly curled up in the fetal position in our bed and the bed was real. My hand caressing the co-sleeper was real. The people talking to me were real, though the echoing voices were so very far removed. No, I wasn't a ghost. I was still alive.
I jolted out of bed ... I felt like I was there for hours, but I had only fallen into bed in a curled-up-ball long enough to jump out of bed and fly to Kale's room.My son. The first baby I was able to bring home with me. My baby boy. I scooped him up and cried so hard I think I shook his bed, but the sobs were silent, inward cries. They were silent sobs that overcame my body and forced my motherly soul to clutch him harder and longer.

I was just lucid enough to realize I could not let go, because "what if" ... could he be next? My safe world had been shattered. I had done everything to make sure my children were protected, safe, happy and loved.

this.could.not.happen.e-v-e-r! 

I sobbed and held him. Then, another mind-blowing realization; I had to tell my children that their sister was dead. I reverted back to the fetal position, with Kale in arms. I closed my eyes tight and just prayed that I would wake up soon. I could not tell my children they would never see their baby sister again. I could not take away their innocent childhood world so soon. I would not do it. I would hold my son and close my eyes and it would all go away.