for a friend

It’s just not fair. That’s what it is. The world can be so beautiful, so warm and inviting, and in the next breath so cold and cruel and… I don’t even know the word. Painful beyond imagining. When I hear of babies who are sick or who are just not going to make it my heart breaks in a way I never ever thought possible. Many of us have been there. Many of us have felt the deepest of grief, the loss of a child. I don’t even pretend to think that losing my Thomas was the most painful thing that could happen in the world or the worst thing that could happen to a child. It was however soul crushing. When I heard that I had a baby inside of me that would never open his eyes, would never fill his lungs, would never cry or laugh or cause me to threaten to sell him to the gypsies the air went out of the room. He had lived in me with his brother for 4 months. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move, I was stunned. And I lived in that state for a long time. And it never really got better. It got different, I’m not in the thick of it, I’m not in that protective fog and disbelief, I’m almost 17 months past that day and life carries on. But it is forever changed.

And so when I hear of a wonderful Mom whose heart is breaking, whose little beautiful boy will never breath or laugh or cry I feel sick. And I don’t get it. Why is it too much to ask that all babies everywhere are OK? Death happens, I get that. Why does it happen to tiny babies and little kids? Why can’t it happen to people who have lived their lives, to people who have made their choices, to people that aren’t so… tiny. A life so innocent, so new, so not even begun. To have that lost is cruel and sad.

And I wish I could hug that Mom. Hold her, cry with her, make her endless cups of tea and buy her a Costco case of tissues (or 2). I wish I knew the words to say. I didn’t know what I needed to hear then, and I don’t know what to say now. I wish you weren’t going through this. Know that you are not alone. That we are crying with you even though we are far apart. Know that the moms that have babies in the arms of God are aching for you, crying for you and your beautiful boy. Know that even as time passes and the days go on and this is all in the past, I will never forget your boy, I will never forget his name, I will remember him as I remember Thomas. Your boy will never be forgotten.