lost

About a week after I delivered Kayla, my best friends sent me a beautiful ring--white gold with a small emerald (May's birthstone).  It was a perfect gift and I put it on and have been wearing it every day.  For the first few months, I wore it instead of my wedding ring.  I had taken off my wedding ring during the last month of my pregnancy because my hand was swollen.  It just seemed right to wear Kayla's ring for awhile.  In the past few weeks, I moved it to my right hand, and started wearing my wedding ring again. 

Today I lost Kayla's ring.  I just looked down at work and it wasn't there anymore.  I am not sure of the exact moment I lost it, but I had been to my grief counselors, the gym, the gas station, all over my school, out to my car to unload a bunch of supplies for a big event we are having tomorrow.  I looked everywhere, called the gym, emptied my purse.  But the truth is, it's just gone.  It's floating around somewhere in the world now, on it's own journey. 

And it made me sad, and I cried at work, which I haven't done in awhile.  And I realized that I was having the same (although lesser) feelings as when we first found out Kayla was "lost."  That intense desire to just go back in time and pinpoint the moment it happened.  Rewind.  Go back and look at the footage of my ring flying off my finger--it was too loose on my right hand--and notice it and pick it up.  Go back to the end of April when my baby girl's heart was slowing down, see inside my uterus and notice it and take her out. 

I won't see Kayla again and I (probably) won't see the ring again.  I can buy a new ring but I can't replace my daughter.  She is floating around somewhere in the world, on her own journey.