I don’t have a name. I don’t know what to do. I am not the person I used to be.

I am broken in two. Half of me is a nameless empty shell. A being functioning on the basic need for survival. Running my life on auto pilot. I feel numb. I have been plunged into a cold darkness where I stumble and grope around for anything that feels real. Yet I don’t want to remember what is real. I don’t want my reality. My person is gone. The man who I believed to be indestructible. The man I assumed would be by my side until one day the universe allowed us to die of old age in each other’s arms. I fall further back into the darkness. I am forced to look up as I hear a sweet sound. I see a shining light. I struggle to walk toward it but I know I must. The light grows brighter and radiates warmth. The light is my daughter. My NM.

The other Half of me is the mother my husband loved to see me be. Singing to our beautiful daughter when she was upset and cuddling her against my bare skin when she was sleeping. I look down at her smile each morning as she wakes and I smile back. I kiss her cheek as she gurgles and coos away, talking almost as much as her Daddy did. I hold her tight and remember the moment I held her first when she was born and her father held us both. She was born at home. She was perfect. She was eleven weeks old when her daddy held her for the last time. He loved her so much.

This other half has a name. That name is Mother or Mama or even Mummi depending on what she decides to call me one day. This name will illuminate my crushing cold darkness. This name will bring me home.