"Hi, Ronda."
I turn to see this soft speaking, young woman. My first thought is that I don't know her. I have no recollection of ever meeting her. Even if I take into account her clever disguise of little packets of silvery tin, layered with wisps of long, brown hair standing all over her head, plastic protective cape topped by a salon hair dryer, I still don't recognize her. Her Hershey Kiss colored eyes stare back at me awaiting my response. Lord, what am I going to say? I don't have one. I go to the well.
"Hi. How are you. I haven't seen you for a long time," I say. My neurons are rifling through the files in my brain, hopping dendrites, attempting to make connections to a memory.
"I'm back to work," she says.
"Well good for you. How is it going for you?" Keep the general responses coming, I think to myself, until you figure out her name. I'm starting to think I really don't know this girl when she sets me straight.
"It is going okay. I've seen B, but not J or T. "
At this point, I know I am stuck. She knows too much about me for me not to know her.
"L is going to rent our house," she says as she points to the obviously happy hair stylist attending her. "I just can't stay in that house any longer. Not since what happened to M. I just can't," she says as tears overspill the rims of her eyes and run down her cheeks and down her protective cape.
And the dendrites and neurons connect and hit a grand slam, outta the park homer in my brain as the memory of the story I heard about this girl shatters the light in my heart.
"Oh, M," I say. "I hardly recognized you. You look like a little girl." And, indeed, she does look small and dwarfed by her surroundings. Right now she looks like a 15-year-old rather than the 25-year-old she used to portray.
"I know," she says. "I don't wear make up any more and I let my hair go back to its natural dark brown instead of keeping it blond. You know, the autopsy showed that there was nothing wrong with him. The doctor said that with SIDS, his brain didn't fire right and he just forgot to breathe. D got us one of those really good infant monitors. I could even hear when he rolled over or wiggled. But I knew something was wrong when he went longer than two hours for his next feeding."
I asked, "Were you the one to find him?"
"Yes, and I knew. I knew right away that he was dead. The room. The room was cold and dark. No life in there. It is funny how it feels so different when life is gone. We tried for three years to make him and we only got to have him for one month and 20 days. I was never supposed to be able to get pregnant in the first place. And now...he's gone. It's just not fair. Pray for us," says the small, foil covered head with the pale, tear stained face, "Pray for us."
Not even bothering to wipe the tears rolling down my face in tandem with hers, I say, "I will, honey. I will," as I walk away.
There are people in life who do harmful things to other people. Not killing or maiming, but being party to acts that are less than honorable and to the detriment of other's lives and careers. This girl is one. Oh, not my life directly, but the lives of ones close to me. I could go into how karma, or right action, balances our deeds. Or how each soul chooses life on this plane to fulfill its own purpose, but I won't. I'll simply do as she asks and pray and ask forgiveness for all people who were a part of this story.
Forgiveness is as much for the healing of our own heart and soul as it is for the ones who wronged us.
19 comments:
What can one say, this story brought tears to my eyes and how could it not. I am praying for this young girl and for her precious baby. I feel for her and will also pray that she gets pregnant again, this will heop with the grief.
I will pray in the name of the son and the Holy Father. I hope that othhers join me.
God bless.
I meant help with the grief.
This is so sad Ronda.There is nothing worse,absolutely nothing worse for parents to lose a child.I'm still haunted after all these years,by the look on the face of a woman I knew.She was working in the bakery of our small village in the south of France.I used to go to the little school there for a while,I was about 7 or 8 and there was a little girl called Emilie that year,smiling all the time,really kind and full of life.She was the little girl of the woman.After school started and after what?a month,something like that,I was just starting to get to know her,still she was really kind that girl,not like some little ones that you could already tell they would turn out to be some pretty bitches.Anyway,one day Emilie was missing.The teacher came and told us that something had happened.Emilie was playing very closed to the edge,near the sea.She fell down and her little body crashed on the rocks.She was gone.After that,seeing that woman who had shining eyes anytime she was seeing us,growing up and imagining how her daughter would be,I imagine.It was so painful.I think she carried on because she had a teenage son,otherwise,she'd be gone too.I would myself,I think,cause there is absolutely NOTHING worse than losing a child!I think of Emilie often,I don't know if others do so,it's kind of a shock when you are little,right just after your stepfather killed himself in a car accident the same year.Well,playing in the same little village,walking the same little steps,it was hard.There have been so many tragedies in this village,sometimes I wonder if it isn't cursed,then again,it's part of life and its mysteries.I'm sorry I didn't mean to write all this,but it reminds me of Emilie.What we need to remember I guess,it's the laughters and how wonderful they were.I'm sorry about your friend.
I wonder sometimes what it is the point of all this!Why someone so young,a little baby would come and just a month later go?I believe that everything happens for a reason most of the times,but here,I'm stuck.Life is beautiful but life is a bitch!
those are tears burning hot trails down my cheeks....
your last sentence...amazingly true
prayers - yes, forgiveness - yes....it's the "forgetting" that is my challenge.
Ronda, many prayers here and as to what Mary said; the "forgetting" is very hard, indeed.
Wow. This is very sad, indeed. It must be the worst thing to lose a child.
Kat
There's just nothing you can say in circumstances like that. So terribly sad. It's bad enough to miscarry but to lose a baby at term or as an infant is just too awful to comprehend.
Sherry: It is so good of you to pray for her future child. You are a good soldier of the light.
Candie: That is such a moving story about Emilie. And your father was killed just before that? Wow. I remember the first time I knew a little girl my age that died. She lived where my grandpa did in a farming community. There was a family across the street with a bunch of kids. I played with all of them but with Janet in particular. Every summer we spent the whole vacation together. When I was about 9, that summer I didn't see Janet. Her sisters said she had died that winter from measles. Measles of all things. So sad. I still think about her too.
Brian: I think it is totally true but many people have a hard time with forgiving because they believe it lets the other person off the hook. I don't think so.
Mary and Subby: I don't believe that "forgetting" is a requirement of forgivenss. There are lessons in the remembering.
Kat: Yes, I can't imagine losing a child, some one you expect to out live.
Baino: The loss is beyond comprehension. Losing anyone or a pet is difficult, but a child? Wow.
It struck me for some reason that she had changed so much and when you mentioned it to her she said she doesn't wear makeup anymore and wears her hair natural color now,so there are major changes inside and outside for her and she is just getting by.
So sad :(
I too, believe, as a parent, the cruelest thing would be to outlive a child. ... Yes, sometimes all you can do is pray. -Jayne
Oh darling, how horrible, here in maine just the other day a man took his daughter too close to the ocean to see the remnants of a hurricane and she was swept into the ocean.
So tragic.
This story leaves me somewhat speechless.
There is everything, simply everything: justice, injustice, Karma, incomprehensible occurrences, people get sick, survive, die, get lucky or lose it all every day. And we are trying to assign meaning to it.
Oh...this is so very sad Ronda. I am glad you were there...and your tears along with hers were a comfort in the way that sharing grief is comforting...UGH! WHAT is comforting about grief??
I too, belive there is a reason and purpose for EVERYTHING...even if it is not known to me.
T-Babe: You got it, she is just barely makining it through each day at this point. She looks like an entirely different person.
Sashindobutsu: Very sad to loose a child.
Jayne: You are so right! Not much you can say that will ease pain in this instance.
Michelle: I heard about that little girl getting swept out to sea. They were supposedly in an area that wasn't as dangerous.
Christina: So things just are, huh?
Jill: You are right about the sharing of tears and grief being comforting. I guess we're not ready to know the purpose of everything.
My friend's son died unexpectedly last year, and it was a foolish death. I won't go into details. But. It has totally changed her. A lot less sunny optimism and a lot more zombie cynicism. I don't know how you move on with these situations, but you do. I do think it alters you forever in some way.
Cube: I know what you mean. One of my friends, a fifty something woman, lost her daughter over a year ago and she is still devasted. She just kind of disappeared as much as possible. It does forever change us.
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