Springtime voices

I'm revisiting this place because a good friend lost her baby. I'm revisiting this place because it is spring and I feel the oncoming freight train of the might-have-been's and what-actually-happened's headed straight for me. I'm revisiting this place because I read this entry by Bon and this entry by Julia and I realized I need to revisit this place to sort it all out.

For a while, I felt like I needed to be quiet...to sort things out in my head. But the truth is, it's not getting sorted out in my head. Babies die. Loved, wanted, precious babies. And friends speak the words you yourself spoke a million years ago. And all I can do is cry and shake my head yes...YES...THAT IS EXACTLY IT!

There has always been power here. Almost a magic. Found in not being alone. In speaking out loud all those things that run through my mind when I am alone (or standing in the middle of a crowd and simply FEELING alone). 

WHY?!?! 

I remember sitting there in the springtime sunshine yelling up at the bluest of skies. So many times I visited that place and asked...begged...

WHY?!?!

At first I strained to hear some message of love...some kindness passed through the universe to soothe my broken heart. And then I was there a year later and "F*** you...you don't get an answer," was what I heard in the silence. 

But these other voices came to me. These voices from amazing women who didn't know me...but recognized the pain. They didn't answer why. They showed me that it didn't really matter why. That I had strength in me I had no idea I had. That there is beauty in the pain. And that friendship can grow in the midst of the worst pain imaginable.

So now I will go to that place again for another funeral service for another loved baby boy named John Edmund. And I will mourn for all my friend has lost...and all that she doesn't yet realize she has lost. I will remember that raw pain and hold her up like you all did for me when I was too weak to hold myself up. I will offer my voice in the silence and hope that it soothes and strengthens. 

Because I know she will ask why.

And I know she won't get an answer.