Its the litte things...

Isn't it funny how things can be going well, feeling comfortable, in the sense that at that moment I'm not in any sort of pain, physical or otherwise, when something small can set of a chain of emotions and suddenly, I hurt.

Its so bizarre and happens usually without any warning, one minute I'm fine and the next minute my heart is breaking all over again. Just a minute ago I was reading a post on someone's blog, someone they know is sick, the works "open heart surgery" were tossed around as a possible way to treat them, my eyes were hesitant to read any further. Do I really want to know whats next? I already have flashes of surgeons, nurses, tubes, blood, nervous family in a waiting room, no thanks, thats enough for me, reading time is over! Three words, open-heart-surgery have the power to make my stomach ache and my eyes well up with tears, it hurt just to see them, granted, not as much as it hurts to see the word "twins" but it still brought back some uncomfortable emotions.

I'm still sent reeling at the sight of twins, the sound of the word on someones lips, and the excitement on expecting parents faces when they announce there's not one but two babies. Its agony, and jealousy and bitterness all rolled up in one new and horrible emotion. What used to make me so happy and proud and excited now makes me so angry and desperate and lost, I can't be happy for those who are getting the chance to have what I lost, and I don't like that about myself, I hope to change it sometime in the near future, I'm working on it.

Someone wonderful I know is having twins. I really, really like her, and she deserves to have beautiful, thriving babies, as many as God will give her. When she announced that twins were a possibility, I braced myself, I tried to prepare myself for her inevitable announcement, and you know what, it helped! Her big announcement didn't come out of no where, I saw it coming, I had time to think about it and prepare my heart for the jealousy and the sadness and the memories and I was actually able to feel an emotion close to happy for her. I feel horrible in admitting that some wonderful women I know got surprise twins, and their announcement to the world was a surprise as well, and whether or not I heard it by word of mouth or through the wonderful social network that is the internet, I was surprised, under prepared and completely devastated by their news. It isn't rational, or reasonable to feel this way, I'm aware of that, but then again, grief is filled with irrational and unreasonable emotions and thoughts, this is all just a part of grief for me.

Twins
Twin strollers
Preemies
NICU's
Heart defects
Funerals
Pregnancy
Baby boys
Infant death
Miscarriage
Kidnappings
Abductions
Runaways
The news
My children

These are all things that can turn a normal day into a sadness filled "Everett" day. It seems that every medical TV drama these days has a baby on ECMO, a mother delivering a baby that won't survive, a child dying from some sort of disease or birth defect. The news is filled with tragedy, malls are filled with parents pushing their babies in their twin strollers, Dr's office lobbies are full with expecting parents, some expecting twins, some telling me their expecting twins. My own children sometimes is all it takes, one talks to her angel brother's pictures, one is his genetic match, a carbon copy, some days my daughter asks Everett's picture on the wall to play, sometimes my son looks in a mirror and for a split second I allow myself to imagine his reflection is his brother, and I get a glimpse of how life would look if I never lost him. Little things cause so much hurt, and the whole rest of the world has no idea that something they've innocently done or said has inflicted any sort of pain on us, they have no way of knowing. The logical part of me knows they mean no harm, the reasonable part of me knows I cannot blame them, and I don't, really.

There's no one to blame for this, loss happens, so do reminders of loss. Just as miracles happen, so do worst case scenarios, and with those two options, you have to be one or the other, you can't be both, we had the misfortune of being a worst case scenario, but no one is at fault. Little things will always pop up, reminders are around each and every corner, and I have to reform the way I think about those reminders. The change has to come from me, because the joy filled expecting mother cannot be asked to tone down her excitement over the news that she's having twins, thats not reasonable, and its not fair. I need to learn to be happy for other people being given the blessing I had, and lost, for my own sanity and for my healing, I need to change my attitude.

Thankfully, with God's help, I am changing. I learn something new every day, some Christian book or piece of scripture frames something up differently for me, and I look at those "little things" in new ways and then react to them differently next time they come up. I am slowly changing my outlook, I'm still so bereft over the loss of my son, I still wish I had known the joys of raising my twin boys together, I'm still a bit sad when someone else announces they're having twins, but I can deal with it better now, time and faith have dulled the edges of my reactions, and I am thankful for that.

Katie