The Gift

I have struggled with the right words to express how I am feeling today.  There are so many complex emotions at play: grief, relief, fear, joy, trepidation, sorrow, gratitude.   So many half-formed and subconscious thoughts swirling beneath the surface. So many questions still left unasked, unanswered.

I was talking to Mo tonight, and trying to put into words both the intense weight and the joyous freedom in my heart today. Yes, I am broken. My heart has not healed, nor do I believe it ever will.  I didn't simply lose a baby last year...I lost the remaining fragments of my innocence. I lost my sense of justice, of any sort of karmic fairness in the world.  I lost my faith in my body, my marriage, myself, and my God.

But I also received a great gift that day, born out of desperation and the complete absence of hope.  You see, our worlds literally fell apart when we lost that dream. Mo had, of course, begun crumbling long before. But I, I was the rock, the glue, the one who kept us sane...and I found myself no longer able to do that. I fell into the deepest, darkest hole I had ever experienced. I couldn't work, I couldn't function.  And I could certainly no longer hold my husband together, because I myself was no longer whole.

And so we fled.  Back home, back to the one person who could always kiss my boo-boos and make everything better.  It's something that Mo and I agree never would have happened if we hadn't experienced that loss. In one last, desperate attempt to save my husband, my marriage, and my life, I somehow found the courage to leave my old life behind. To start again, in a new state, far away from everything I had spent the last ten years building. And, for all intents and purposes, it worked.

With his or her brief stay, and too-soon exit from this world, my baby gave me the greatest gift he or she possibly could.  He gave me my family, and he gave me my husband back.

I realize that it may seem incongruent, for someone like me, someone who professes to no longer believe in the existence of God, to speak about the purpose, the reason for any other being's existence. I can't make sense of it myself.  I only know that it comforts me to think that my baby came to me for a reason, that his or her short life had meaning.

That any of this has some sort of meaning.

I am happier today than I expected. I was able to see my whole family tonight.  I hugged my momma and tickled my niece.  I baked brownies with my sister and licked the beaters.  I cried on my husband's shoulder, then curled up with him in bed, secure in the knowledge that he is here, solid, reassuring, and sober.

I didn't have any of that last year.

Everything I have today -- the comfort of my parents, the support of my sister, the love of my niece -- hell, even my marriage -- was a gift of the most remarkable proportions.  Had I not experienced the misery and pain of losing the one thing I wanted more than anything, I wouldn't have any of those things, at least not in my day-to-day life.

So thank you, little one.  Thank you for coming, although you could not stay.

Thank you for finding a way to bring me home.

Thank you for saving my life, and your father's.

Thank you for giving me hope.