Kindness of strangers

Yesterday I had an encounter with someone who didn't know what happened to Ramona.  I explained, the woman was sad and shocked, but for some reason it set me off.  I ended up at a Coney Island crying my eyes out.

She wasn't rude, but she didn't ask what her name was and I was left just kind of standing there while she talked nervously.  She tried her best, but it was so hard to stand there and make small talk. 

All I've been thinking lately is WHY?  Why my daughter, why me, why my husband, why our family?  While I was pregnant I knew eight other pregnant women.  Two of us have lost our children, one gave birth to a healthy baby boy, and the other six are waiting.  I know they must be scared by what happened to my child and my friend's child, but I also get a feeling there is an air of certainty around them.  That since this happened to me, to Jessica, to Ramona and Savannah, that they should be in the clear.  And I hate them for it. 

These women are friends, one a best friend, and right now in this moment I hate them with every ounce of my being.  I don't WANT them to go through what we're going through, but WHY?  They will most likely bring their children home.  Two of those children will be girls.  I don't know if I will ever be able to look at them without hating them.  In an irrational way, I blame them.  I blame them for taking the place of my Ramona.  I know it's crazy.  I don't care. 

I ended up at the Coney Island after the gym and all this came pouring out of me.  When the waitress came to take my order instead of telling her I wanted two eggs over medium I started crying and choked out, "I'm having a really bad day, I'm sorry."  This woman I've never met before in my life grabbed me and hugged me.  She didn't know what I was going through, but she hugged me and showed me a smiley face on her receipt pad.  "You keep thinking about this right here," she said.

I'm trying.  I'm trying to move forward, I'm trying to push through the anger and the hate.  I'm trying to be a good person, but it is damn hard.  It is damn hard to live without your child when so many others don't have to.

Pre-

There's an unopened email in my inbox.  It's from my mother, sent Christmas Eve morning.  She didn't know we'd been in the hospital overnight.  I didn't have the heart to call her after we got the news.  I wanted our family to have one last night free of grief. 

I haven't had the guts to open or delete it.  Thanks to gmail I know what it says.  She just wanted to know if I was awake and to call her if I was.  As far as my mother knew we'd be over that afternoon, preparing our Christmas smorgasbord and celebrating together.  Or she'd be with me in the hospital, which is what we'd been expecting the night before.  Instead she would get a phone call that her first and only grandchild had died. 

It's my last, small connection to my old life.  I remember about a week earlier thinking how happy and lucky I was.  Pre-emptiness, pre-sorrow.  My life before feels like fiction, like a sitcom that occasionally touches on a serious subject in a humorous light.  I look at pictures of myself from when I was pregnant and I try conjure those feelings of joy and anticipation, because I know I'll never have them again.  That part of my life is over.