Preparing the Way

I remember when Bo was still very unstable and it was still questionable whether we would have to say goodbye to him before he would even be old enough to remember us, before he was old enough for us to actually make memories with him, long long long before we would even know what it meant to be ready to say goodbye. It was very hard for me to be around others' pregnancies. It gave me the irrational longing to be pregnant, the condition that kept Bo the safest. In my grief-striken reveries I would imagine having child after child, like each was a layer to buffer the pain. Insurance. Talismen. A continuous hormone high.

And now that we are more than halfway through this second pregnancy, it is a struggle to keep a lid on the hysteria. And I just can't stand being the exhuberant, joyful expectant mother- so much the thumb in the eye of who I was just so recently. And certainly, to any of those other mothers waiting to be mothers.

Maybe that's why I still follow and have so much empathy for the families I follow on the links included on this blog. They all walk paths that are the alternate universe we may have so easily been on, that we might find ourselves on again any day, that we feel we are on some days more than others, still. Saying goodbye, struggling with hospitalizations, searching for therapies, for answers, for support.

Life is uncertain. Anyone might be faced with these realities, but having been so close to them so long, breathing the same air, sharing the same bed with anguish, night after night. It can be paralyzing. And then this child, always on the move, gives a kick, tumbles, morning, noon and night. And we keep moving too. Grateful for the chance.

Maybe that's what they mean when they say someone "found religion." That you've found your stronger self emerging from the broken bones and ashes. I've seen the bright white of extra calcification where a broken bone has mended, stronger than before.