‘Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.’ – Ferris Bueller

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There are moments where I stand completely still, and it’s instantly four years ago. I’m cradling my tiny three-year-old, whose legs are disproportionally small, whose head is free of hair, whose body cannot sustain life without medical assistance.

There are moments when an entire day filled with school drop off, tiresome work hours, dinners, and baths, and bedtime all seem as fleeting as a mere second.

Moments between the life of a child I’m loving and raising and the absence of one I had to let go where I am completely frozen.

Frozen in time, between the world of the living and the dream of a Heaven I cannot reach.

What is so hard to fathom is that being split between these two worlds causes emotional, physical, overwhelming paralysis.

A paralysis that is permanent. Motion and progress and growth will remain fixed and incurable.

I, the mama of a beautiful angel in Heaven and an incredible child on Earth, cannot move. Life continues. And I stand still.

I cannot move. Stuck between two worlds. Caught in the middle of a still life painting and an action film. Still in a memory. Sprinting through a reality.

Grasping at any branch, any string, any foothold that will tie me to my angel. While also stomping the clutch to push myself into a higher gear.

No object can be still while in motion.

Except a mother with a child on Earth and a child in Heaven.