Impossible, improbable, unlikely

I have recently had the painful realization that possibility is a concept most frequently used metaphorically. We use it all the time to refer to unlikely situations; interpersonal problems where everyone can't be satisfied and compromise seems too far away to contemplate. Impossible as a stand-in for frustration, used to lament that a bad end is hurtling towards us.

But the one thing I want more than anything is now truly impossible. Impossible. 100% certain never to happen. I will never see my baby again, hold her close, kiss her soft hair, peer into her eyes so we can learn and memorize the landscape of each others' faces. I was fortunate to do all of this while she lived, most of it in our last moments together, and now I will pine for it forever because it is impossible in this timeline of reality that I have landed in, haphazardly and without reason.

I used to be, and perhaps still will be, an extremely cautious optimist. I went through every scenario in my mind, budgeting outcomes carefully using an extensive knowledge of statistical likelihood cultivated from a lifetime of reading and of close observation of the world around me. The way I have lived my life is to fact-check and predict. My main source of hubris has been to always know what's coming, what's happening, never to be surprised by an option I hadn't considered.

To that end, I had of course contemplated the possibility that my daughter would die, from the moment she was conceived. I knew it was possible. I didn't share my pregnancy news until the likelihood increased that she would survive, even though everything went well for many months. When the pregnancy specialists told us she had developed hydrops, I mentally calculated the exact odds of her death at every week during the rest of our time together. I knew she was likely to die, and yet...

I hoped.

I even prayed, though I am a hesitant atheist. I went to rounds every day in the NICU (except the last two days, more about that later) and learned all I could about every aspect of her care. I thought about every possible outcome, every treatment modality we might use, but in the end all I could do was hope. Hope, and be Kestrel's Mama. Love her, sing to her, treasure her for every moment she had on earth.

Because while I knew she might die, I never considered the finiteness of it. Never understood the true meaning of the word impossible. When she was alive, anything was possible. Yes, she might die, but I did not believe it would happen. I didn't believe it when she finally did die, in my arms, and part of me will never believe it as long as I live, although her ashes sit in an urn in my bedroom. Reality has confronted me with its cold, unrelenting elimination of possibility, and I may never accept that it is impossible to have the one thing I desire more than anything in the world.