Daniel lived for one day

 Daniel lived for one day.  I just learned his name today.  Mom just learned his name today.  Daniel was technically her brother.  

When Mom was six, Grandma was pregnant.  One day she lost the turkeys.  How does one lose turkeys?  Beats me, but you better get them back when its your livelihood, no matter how pregnant you are.  Well, shit happens, Grams fell in a ditch.  That means she treated herself to a hospital birth, rather than a home birth.  Seems nothing could be done.  There apparently was skull damage of some kind, so he wasn't long for this world.  He cried all night and could not be consoled, until death took away all his pain.  

Grandpa bought a tiny casket.  the image alone is enough to move the coldest heart.  So Daniel was blessed and buried properly to show, though his time with us was brief, he was loved.  Thus insuring his place beside God, as one of his most precious and tiny of angels.  

How do you get over the loss?  How do you not hate yourself and hate the nurses and whoever else is around to hate?  These things and these words, they're not really for Daniel.  They're for those left behind.  Sort of a balm for our hearts, so we know we did all we could, even if its just show.  

Well Gina (as i like to call her), ever the practical woman she had to be, harbored no ill feelings.  Like I said, shit happens.  Though she would tell her eldest daughter (not my mom), 'someone walks with us', as they strolled down the street.  Maybe it was Daniel?  I can't imagine she didn't think of him often.  

Skip to 2005ish, I'm at a fortune teller.  At the time i didn't notice but as she lays down the cards, a card obviously about sex comes up.  I get excited.  I've never had a poker face.  Any seer worth her salt would take advantage of this, as this one did, and move said card to the middle of the table, the spot of most importance.  This is just an aside as that always amused me.  What this is really about is the seer's insistence that i had a little boy with me.  she asked if i had children that died, a brother that died, did i even know any children?  She kept trying to push it.  I would think once she saw it wasn't getting any hits she would back off.  My mom claims it was me that suggested it was Daniel, but I swear it was her.  I do look like Gina.  I did an age progression on snapchat and the resemblance is uncanny. When I showed mom she thought i had a picture of Gina.  Once she was told the truth, she told me not to do that kind of thing.  She can't stand the thought of me old.  Anyway, maybe Daniel drifted over to me.  I must have been close to the age Gina was during that pregnancy.  

now i don't believe in ghosts.  I am a woman of science so to speak, but isn't it comforting to speak to the dead?  I will talk to Daniel now and again, and ask him why he's hanging around.  Maybe heaven is a bore.