FITYMI 2006 Holiday Roundup

It was boring living it, so I'm sure it will be boring reading about it. I will, therefore, take pity on you, dear internets, and spare you the details. Let's just say that Delphi was precisely right when she said,

"I just can't even believe it some times. I had a son. He is dead. Today I had to visit my son, who is dead and buried in the ground. I had to sit next to a headstone in a frozen expanse of snow, surrounded by other people's babies who are also dead. Babies die. My baby died. I just don't understand it, not in any way at all. There are days where it is all too big and confusing for me. Today is one of those days. I just don't understand."

And with Christmas and all the "magic" that you're supposed to feel...I finally figured out my issue with religion and religious types. It's not the God thing...though that certainly still perplexes me to no end. It's not the judgment thing...hell...I would judge me too if I weren't me (in fact, I still do judge me sometimes...what did I do to deserve this?). It's not the self assuredness of it all...or the condescension with which it is all served up. Nope...it's much simpler than that.

At it's very root, it is offered as an attempt to make me feel better.

And I don't want to feel better.

See?

Feel better...your babies are angels in heaven.
Feel better...you will be with them one day.
Feel better...it is all according to some plan and not just random bad luck.
Feel better...there is a reason for your suffering even if you don't know what it is at this moment.

Feel better.

Just feel better.

NO!

That's my problem. I don't WANT to feel better.

That's not entirely true. I WANT to FEEL better...but I don't want to find any sort of peace in this. I want to live my life without the gut-wrenching pain and sorrow I feel when I see my boys' pictures on the wall. But I don't want this to be all OK. NEVER. I don't want anyone to ever think that I have moved on...that I have somehow forgotten them. I want to remember. Not what I lost...but who they were...as their own little people...who they could have been.

Maybe they are angels in heaven and maybe one day I will get to see them. Maybe not. Maybe this is all there is. And if it is all there is, then it is my responsibility to make sure that they are never forgotten. I don't want to feel better in the hope that there is something after. Because if there isn't, I will have missed my chance...and then they will well and truly be lost.

So when someone tells me, in no uncertain terms, that I should just feel better because there is a religious reason for doing so...I want to kick and scream and tell them this one thing they seem not to understand...

I am their mother.

Yep FITYMI 2006 is OVER. It ended not one minute too soon. My face hurts from fake smiling. I have a tension headache. My neck and shoulders feel like they've been tied up in knots.

I look up on my entertainment center and see three ornaments with three names. I look around my living room and see one little boy. How did my life turn out like this?

It's all too big and confusing for me today.

And I feel the tears coming.