Phantom limbs

I feel so lost right now.  Like all of my limbs are gone….a useless stump of nothing.  What does one do without limbs? A horrible metaphor for sure…but how do you describe the feeling of loss so deep that it alters your soul?  The yearning to just brush the hair out of your child’s face or wipe away an “eye boogie”.  What once was irritation when asked for the millionth time to sing “You Are My Sunshine”…is now replaced with a longing just to hear those words. To smell the chocolate on her face…I’d give anything.  I don’t know how to continue but I do…because I have to and because I know ultimately that I have no other choice and that they need me. Despite the amount of times it’s been literally or figuratively beaten into me that I am nothing, I am something.  Something to them.  Everything to them and I must persevere.  Because if I don’t…we’ll all be lost, won’t we?