Empty Places

 She sat on the bench in the withering heat of  a hot summer day.  In front of her was a wooden cross marking the spot where her son lay.

Perspiration dotted her forehead and her lower lip started to tremble.  The pictures flashed before her eyes.  The words. The pain. The little video clips rolling in her minds eye.

She knelt on the living room floor and put on his little pants and then his shirt and she looked down lovingly at him with a soft smile.  Her daughter sat to her left, very closely snuggled up to her, and she looked down too.  "Mommy, I miss my baby brother" she said as tears rolled down her little face.  "Me too" she said softly while looking at the baby clothes laying on the floor.  Clothes neatly arranged, but no baby.  She gathered the clothes up in her arms and rocked them for awhile.

Clothes but no baby and a grave with no body.

Empty places in her heart.