Further Thoughts

   All right so I'm posting twice in one night. So shoot me.

   It's a little crazy how you can be one person on the outside and another entirely on the inside. I think if my friends or family knew the feelings I keep buried, they would be rather shocked and overwhelmed. I think they would wonder why I never said anything before. Well, I have some very good reasons why I don't say the things I'm saying here, to anyone who knows me in real life. Reason #1 is, I don't want to hear all the things they would say to try to make sense of my craziness. First they would just be blown out of the water and want to know what happened to get me where I am. Then, they would try to fix me. They'd try to say something to answer the unanswerable. They would try to fix the unfixable. And in so doing, they would make my pain seem like---like it was wrong of me to be hurting. That my pain was silly, stupid, unreasonable, crazy. That it didn't match up with the reality of what had happened---that over a year and a half ago, I had a miscarriage. 
   That makes me think of something. This month---the month of August--was when she would have been due. My baby would have been a year old this month. That pains me. 
    Anyway, since it's been well over a year, my pain apparently is supposed to be all better now, all gone, dissipated, dried up, poof---vanished. Mostly likely I shouldn't even be mentioning the miscarriage anymore. So, that's what I attempt to convey: that I'm all better. I'm OK! Really! I have a new baby now, and I am so happy. My new baby has completely made me forget I was ever sad about losing the last one. When in reality, while I love my new little guy, he does not REPLACE a life lost. You can't just "go out and buy a new one" when it comes to babies. Heck, that doesn't even work for pets! WHY would people think it works for BABIES?!? Even a kid whose pet goldfish has died, will easily tell you that buying a new goldfish just isn't quite the same as their beloved Goldie. (Or whatever name they decided to name it.) So if even with a pet fish, of all things, it is still sad to lose one even after it's been replaced, then why, why, I ask you, do people seem to think you can replace a child? It's stinking ridiculous! Oh...I know why! Here's why...because a goldfish, you spent time with. You named him, you watched him swim slow circles in his bowl. You spent long moments talking with him about life and love and all that matters. You fed him. You cleaned his bowl. You got rather attached to him. But unborn babies---oh everybody knows you can't bond with an unborn baby, right? It's just a nobody until it's born. (Pardon the heavily-ladeled serving of sarcasm.) As a three-time mother, I can easily say, yes, you CAN get attached to your unborn baby. You CAN bond with them. You can even get a sense of what their little personality will be like.
   With my newest little baby, I recall having a dream about giving birth to him. I was only about 4 1/2 months pregnant, right about halfway. I wrote out my dream, because it was sweet to me. It helped me feel like I was able to bond with my son more, because up until that point I was just scared that I'd lose him and not really able to enjoy the process. Well I just re-read that dream entry a few weeks ago, and I was startled by the fact that the baby in the dream, in my mind's eye, looked like my baby does. And his personality was the same. It was my baby. Before he was even born, I had a glimpse of what he was going to be like. I'm sure that doesn't happen to everyone. Heck, it didn't happen to me with my first baby. But I now know that mothers really can know their unborn children. They get a feel for that baby's soul before they even make their entrance into the world. And that---that is what they mourn when a baby dies too soon. They are mourning their real child---their child's personality, individuality, and the bond that they shared with them, however briefly. You can't replace that with a new pregnancy, nor a new child held in the mother's arms. Because it will never be the same personality, the same individual as the one that died. That baby is dead, and no one can bring it back. 

   The flip side of all these dark feelings is, I think I might be a little crazy for having them. I think I must be too self-centered. I must be just cynical. I must be depressed. I must be having a mid-life crisis. Everyone else seems to do OK. Even people who have a spouse die, or a parent. They grieve, they mourn, and then they move on. They find the silver lining. Why am I still so hung up? Why is my world, as I know it, over? Why can't I find joy in life again? It's been long enough, I think. In the passage of time, it's been chronologically long enough. But in my heart, there will never be enough time. Because it will never be right. It will never be OK  that my baby died. It will never be, "Oh it must have been God's will. We don't know the reason, but we just have to trust." It will never be, "These things happen." It will never be, "Sure, my baby died, but I have found something in it to be grateful for." It will forever be, in my heart, "Something terrible, awful, has happened, and nothing can ever make it right again." THAT is how it is when someone dies. No one can ever say anything to make it any better. But what can help, what can help that person feel just a little less pain, is for people to say, "It's the most awful thing that could happen to someone, and I'm so sorry it happened to you." And to cry with you. And to ask you how you're doing with it a month later, 6 months later, a year later. 2 years. And to let you know that they remember the one you lost. That they remember that your baby would have been a year old, or how your baby might have been learning to stand, to pull themselves up, to cruise the furniture, to walk. The smiles you will miss, never hearing the words "Dada" or "Mama" come out of their mouths. Not even having a grave to visit, nor a picture to gaze at. Never even knowing for sure your dead child's gender. The color of their hair. The way they would look. And having everything in the world around you just go on as if nothing ever happened at all.