My daughter died 20 years ago today.

Twenty years on. This anniversary is never fun, but it feels like a milestone I did not, at the time, think I would ever see. At the time, every minute passing by was a torture as I grappled with an intolerable fact that every cell and every thought and emotion rejected.

I wondered how to live if Bekah didn't. Twenty years on, I think I've learned and managed about as well as possible given her persistent absence. Still miss her, always will. Still feel her near me and take comfort in little signs I fancy she sends me.

"Sad soul, take comfort, nor forget
That sunrise never failed us yet" - Celia Thaxter

Early on I scolded the sun for daring to rise if Bekah wasn't alive. Night after sleepless night I watched it do it anyway. I gazed at the rising sun, begging it to bring me back my girl. Just let me see her ghost. Her face. Her smile. To this day I fall out longing for a visit from her as I dream. It happens sometimes. She's different ages in these dreams. Sometimes I know she's dead, other times I don't until I wake up.

The sun did persist in rising, day in, day out, for twenty years now. It has done so again today. It feels like a milestone I must memorialize, even if I don't know how. I want to write a poem but the words elude me. I want to make a painting but my hand is shaky and I don't think I'll like what results. So here we are. Twenty years.

[link:https://www.lapdonline.org/july_2001/news_view/22911|]