sad with me

i'm sitting here on the couch with my feet up, in my nice, cool, air conditioned house, with the day off, plenty to eat and drink, and the confidence that the miracle inside me is doing just fine. one might say in such a situation, "life is good", but i know i will never speak those words for as long as i live.



i was looking at a picture the other day that i have hanging in our pantry in an attempt to stave off snacking (it doesn't work). it's from july 4, 2001. the towers were still standing. my daddy was alive. i was thin. i had a new boyfriend and we were in that blissful beginning stages of a relationship which, unbeknownst to us at the time, would last forever. we hadn't lost baby. or two. life was good. in other words, we were clueless.



i'm still in that blissful stage. i love him so much. i just cried when he left. that might not be normal for an adult wife, but for me, it's standard. i dont want him to leave. i want to spend every minute with him. i've never been one who needed "alone time" and suddenly, i'm inundated with it. even if he's home, outside doing yard work, or in the garage, or watching something i'm not interested in on tv and i'm doing something else, i'm still not alone. he's home. home is where the heart is. my heart is wherever he is. we have a plaque on our wall, a wedding gift from his parents, that says "when i say i am going home, i mean i am going to where you are."



our doggies are at my feet and they are sad with me. they don't want daddy to leave either. i was going to say, they don't know what they're missing about the baby girl they never met, but they're sad for her because i am. but really, that's inaccurate. when she died, john and i were in the hospital for 3 days. usually c-sections stay for 4, but they gave me the option to leave a day early since it's less than ideal to be surrounded by newborns after your own has died. perhaps the comfort of our own home and bed would be suitable. but i was terrified to go home without my baby. i was being nurtured at the hospital, i could be a victim. if i went home, i'd have to take care of myself. i dont want to take care of myself! i want to take care of my baby! so i was on the phone with my poor mother who had been in my house for those 3 days by herself. (we miss my daddy so much, even more in thes situations.) she said she was too lonely, and if i wasnt coming home, she was coming to the hospital. i just couldnt decide what to do. she then said "your dogs miss you. they are sad. they arent eating." i burst into harder tears than were already endlesslly falling, and i looked at john and said "we're going home."



we have vacationed many times and they've never stopped eating without us. they pretty much never miss a meal. we weren't even home, and they knew we were sad. they knew a big change was coming, which was suppossed to be the baby, and then, the world was knocked off its axis, and they knew. they know what they're missing. they're sad with me. everyone i know is sad with me. God is sad with me.



I can find healing and happiness in my huband, my dogs, in God, in the sound of my baby's heartbeat, in honoring the memory of my daughter, in collecting cherries, in wearing pink, in milk and cookies, an uplifting book, a kind gesture, a new friend, an old friend, a song lyric that could have come straight from my own heart. but the sad will always be with me.