2 hrs 40 mins

I'm a bookkeeper for a church.
My office sits directly behind the secretaries office.
We are divided by a hallway, but on cool mornings like today, I keep my door open to let the sunshine in. 
Her office is illuminated with light, she has so many windows. The front door office faces the church and I can see the stained glass windows. 

I rarely ever have contact with our parishioners or the public.  I never take any calls or receive faxes for service requests.  However, the secretary needed coverage this morning, so I've been on phone duty.  So far in the hour that I've been answering calls, I've had five separate calls for funeral requests.  A minute ago a sixth call from a funeral home. I didn't answer. I figured the secretary could hear messages on the answering machine just as well as reading my written notes. Three rings....four rings.... "Hi, you've reached St. ," my voice is on the answering machine.  I've decided not to answer calls any more this morning.  I'm too vulnerable to hear about death. I can't offer any consolation to the other person on the other end. I know the grief of loss that they are feeling. What can I possibly say to them? I would be spewing out hypocrisy, lies, the same automated responses people say to me. Even as I write this I know that I am not in a place to give advice.  I LOVE GOD, I KNOW GOD, and I KNOW MY FAITH., but today and probably tomorrow, I am a hurting  mother who is going through something that no mother should ever have to go through especially for the second time......and I am tired.

A new ring tone is coming from her office. Not the office phone...it's the fax.  I walk into her office and examine the faxes already sitting in the machine as the new one prints out.  Trash, trash, trash.. all junk mail!

As the fax prints, I can already see it's a funeral request.  I pull it out and start to read, beautiful name!

Age: 2 hrs, 40 mins
Cause of death:  prematurity

For that one moment, alone in the front office, I cried tears that I thought I no longer had.
And as I read the mother and fathers name, I felt a sense of jealousy.

Jealous of the 2hrs and 40 mins that mother got to hold her child in her arms.
Jealous of the 2hrs and 40 mins that she got smell her child, kiss her child.

I'm human.
I'm a sinner.
I'm a mother.