On Mirrors

My body still holds the weight of my daughter seven months after her birth and death. Though the weight fluctuates by a pound or two, the few times I have stepped on a scale, I read the same number I saw standing on the scale in Labor and Delivery after my water broke too early. The weight is a kind of haunting, but if I can’t have my baby alive with me I’ll take her ghost. I’ll take the pale, taunting imprint. I catch glimpses of her in the mirror when I’m changing and I don’t look away fast enough. 

My daughter was born just after my belly popped. I texted friends about how I couldn't stop looking at myself in the mirror, reveling in these curves announcing new life. Those curves have sloughed off into pouches of fat, clinging to my hips as though in a botched attempt to comfort me. My body killed this baby, and yet it carries the weight of her like a souvenir.

My body killed my baby, and it killed three others as well, but there is one who survived it. That one living child now jumps in bed as I change into pajamas. He is no pale imprint; he is loud and happy and, currently, overtired. I am also tired, too much so to cover up but all too practiced in looking away from this body I despise, and so I search for my pajamas with one hand and text with the other. But my living child does not see my body as a lumpy deathtrap. He rushes over, squealing with delight over the realization that I have a belly button of all things! (He has realized this before, but each time seems a new revelation.)

With his cold little fingers pressing against my belly, I put down my phone and look at him smiling and laughing up at me. He drops his hand and headbutts my thigh in a kiss before running off. Ghosts are not the only ones reflected back in the mirror at me; ghosts are not the only imprints on my body. There is joy sometimes too. This body holds the weight of love and grief. And belly buttons are magical indeed.