Almost Was Never enough

Loss of a Child

Almost was never enough. Her little fingers were folded across her chest, impossibly small, as if they were still learning how to exist. They looked unfinished, like they were waiting for instructions that never came. I memorized them anyway. I memorized everything. The curve of her hands. The faint crease at her knuckles. The way her nails barely reached the tips of her fingers.

I told myself that if I knew every detail, I could carry her with me without losing anything important. She was so close. Inches away. Yet it's already unreachable. The quiet way her body rested made it feel like she might wake up if I breathed too loudly. I held my breath more than once, afraid sound might remind the world she was gone. My chest burned from the effort, but I didn’t care. Pain felt appropriate. Breathing felt like betrayal.

Almost was never enough as I stared at her glass-like skin, so fragile it felt like a miracle it had ever been warm. I searched her face for traces of what had been—what should have continued. I kept thinking that if I looked long enough, I could remember what warmth felt like. That memory might return it to my hands. That memory could be a form of resurrection. She was right there. I could see her. Touch her.

But the distance between alive and gone stretched wider than any space I had ever known. They told me I could hold her for just a little while. Their voices were gentle, rehearsed, and practiced in other people’s tragedies. Time shrank into seconds that felt like hours, and hours that vanished too fast. I counted every breath I took beside her, terrified of the moment I would have to stop counting. Terrified of the moment, they would tell me time was up. I wanted more than almost. More than borrowed minutes. More than a goodbye, I didn’t agree to.

When I held her, she fit perfectly into the shape of my arms, as though she had always belonged there. My body recognized her even if the world refused to keep her. That made it worse. That made it cruel. She was so close to home. So close to staying. Almost was never enough when I had to hand her over, knowing I would not leave with her in my arms. Knowing my hands would be empty in a way that felt louder than screaming.

I watched them take her, step by careful step, each movement widening the space between us. The room didn’t change, but everything in me did. She was still there. I could still see her. And yet she was already gone.

Almost was never enough when I brought her home in a white plastic container. The weight of it was wrong—too light, too final. It didn’t match the heaviness inside my chest. I carried it like it might break, like everything else had already done. I held it close, closer than I had ever held anything, and still it felt miles away. She was with me. But she wasn’t with me.

I remember thinking how cruel it was that she could be so close—on the seat beside me, within reach of my hand—and yet farther than she had ever been. I could take her home, but I couldn’t bring her back. I could keep her near but never close enough. I remember all the almost we had. They live inside me now, quiet but relentless. They stack themselves neatly, like unopened boxes lining the walls of a life that never got to happen.

We almost got to see her smile. I imagined it anyway soft and new, the kind that surprises parents into tears because they don’t know they’ve been waiting for it until it happens. I could see it so clearly it felt like a memory. I swear I almost recognized it.

We almost got to see the color of her eyes. I told myself they were blue. Maybe green. Maybe something in between that would change depending on the light or her mood. I will never know, and somehow that hurts more than choosing wrong. Choosing means finality. Not knowing leaves the door open just enough to ache.

We almost got to brush her long blonde hair. I pictured it tangled in the morning, catching sunlight, growing longer than my patience but never longer than my love. I imagined her pulling away from the brush, laughing, annoyed, and alive. I imagined complaining about it. I imagined everything I would have given to be tired.

We almost got to hear her laugh. I don’t know what it would have sounded like, but I know it would have been like her brother’s—a laugh that changes the shape of every room it touches. A laugh that announces joy without apology. A laugh that lingers after the sound is gone.

She was so close to all of it. So close to becoming real in the ways that matter. There are so many almost living inside me now. They pile up quietly, like things never unpacked. Like conversations paused mid-sentence. They don’t shout. They don’t demand. They simply exist, heavy and constant, reminding me of the distance between what was and what should have been.

I almost got to hold her hand as she grew older instead of holding it only once, frozen in time. I almost got to feel her fingers curl around mine on purpose, not placed there by circumstance.

I almost got to kiss her cheek goodbye in the way parents do every day, never realizing how sacred that goodbye really is. The kind of goodbye that assumes return. The kind that doesn’t know it’s holy. Almost was never enough. It never will be. Grief is living in the space between near and unreachable. It is knowing something was within your grasp and still losing it. It is standing inches from what you love and being powerless to close the distance.

But there is one thing that is not, an almost.

My love for her. I loved her then. I love her now. I will love her forever. That love does not exist at a distance. It does not fade or weaken with time. It does not depend on milestones or firsts, or proof. It is complete, even in its ache.

Whole, even in its absence. Everything else may have been brief, imagined, or lost—but that love is finished in the way only truth can be finished. Untouchable. Undiminished. She may have been so close and yet so far. But my love for her has never been out of reach.

And that will never change.