Life is great….until it’s not. A rollercoaster that only goes up till the tracks break and it hurls towards the ground. Last month was the worst.
“I’m going to be a daddy!” My brother announced as I gave him an enormous hug. My tears of joy wouldn’t last long. The weeks went past and the joy I felt only grew with each day. Only to be diminished in the end. I planned baby showers, we bought a car seat, and my other sister saved clothes from her baby in hopes that it was a boy, because that’s what they wanted. I was amazed by all the joy and love I felt for this baby I’ve never seen, and all my feelings were destroyed in seconds.
    My friend had come over when the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hi.”
“How are you?” I cheerfully asked.
“Not good.” My sister- in- law’s voice shook and soon you could hear the tears. I handed the phone to my mom.
“Mom, it’s Flo. Something’s wrong.” My mom sat there and I watched as her face fell. Then the tears poured and I got concerned.
“Something’s wrong.” I told my friend.
“What?” She asked. I didn’t know what to tell her. I paced back and forth, occasionally walking back over to my mom. When she was finally off the phone, I stood in front of her.
“Mom.”
“Sit down.” she said. “Flo is okay, she had a doctor’s appointment today and when they checked for the baby, it wasn’t where it’s supposed to be and if they let….” I knew what she was going to say. I had felt it inside me since I answered the phone. I ran to my room and threw myself onto the bed, trying to avoid the reality of the situation. I bald my eyes out, and I gasped for air as the tears and pain became overwhelming. My friend walked in and then my mom. I tried to hide my face and stop the tears but it didn’t work.
“I’m sorry.” My mom said.
“Why!? Why us?! Why this!?” I yelled through my tears.
I didn’t tell her what I really thought. It was much too horrible for her to hear. I was sad and angry; angry that god would do this to us, sad that I would never get to hold the baby. I’d never get to tell it how much I loved it. I would never even know the gender. Never see it walk. Never see it get married or be in love. My last thought was this: it was lucky that it would never have to feel pain like this.
  My mom left to go see Flo and my brother. As soon as I heard the front door close, I burst into tears again in the arms of my friend.
   The next couple days I hardly spoke, hardly ate, and hardly smiled. I stopped singing in the shower and over all stopped being happy. The car seat, still sitting in the living room, haunting me. The pain went away for a while, or maybe the pain numbed me into not feeling anything. But then, as I thought things may get better they got far worse. About a week from that day, the phone rang. My mom answered it and went into her room for a while. When she came out, she cried, and sat next to me. I blankly stared at her face, ready to hear what else life had to throw at me.
   “So Colin and Jenn (my other brother and his wife) were going to have a baby, but when they checked for a heartbeat, there wasn’t one. So, they lost their baby too.” My mom said, sniffling through her tears. I just stared in my blank state of numbing pain, the kind that takes over your whole body so you can’t feel anything. I’m not a heartless person. Trust me, I wanted to cry but the tears were all dried up. How could God let this happen to both of them? Didn’t he know how much it hurt us? How can he let all these other undeserving people have babies? The people that abuse and abandon and hate their children can be gifted with beautiful children, but they can’t. Why?
  A couple more weeks passed and I tried to avoid the subject of babies. My mom couldn’t handle it though. She searched on the internet form something she called her “closer.” She finally found it. A fountain for one of her many gardens. A young boy and girl under an umbrella and the “rain” falls onto the umbrella. She drove four hours there and back for this fountain. I watch as they pieced it together in the garden. I sat on the bench a few feet away, watching as it came together before me. I stared at the ground without a smile.
“Are you ok?” my mom kept asking. “Yes.” I lied. For my heart ached at the thought that they were gone and there was nothing I could do about it. I must not be a good liar for my mom said,“This is supposed to help us remember them not makes us sad.” I knew that, but I couldn’t think of it that way. I saw the lonely children in the rain, cold and afraid as it poured down. I imagined the rain as my tears drowning them in my sorrow and with that I couldn’t look any longer. I got up and walked inside. I got in the bath and cried. I looked at myself in the mirror crying. My eyes were bloodshot and my head ached. My eyes were so dry from all the other times I had cried that week that each tear burned as it flooded out. At this point in time I don’t know what I felt anymore than hurt. I didn’t want to be sad anymore, so I tried to think of some positive things which only made me cry harder. They’ll never have to be scared and alone. They’ll never have to feel pain. They’ll never cry of a broken heart. They’ll never know of death or anything bad in the world. All they will ever know is happiness. All things that I had to know and feel and fear, they wouldn’t.
   I haven’t looked at that fountain since. I don’t know when the pain will go away or if it ever will. I sometimes think about what could have been if they were both still about to be born. I wonder if they know how much I love them….I hope they do. But for now I have to try to be brave and be happy for the things I do have and know that they’re somewhere in Heaven being taken care of. The car seat still sits there in the living room. In some ways it’s sad, but in other ways I never want to put it away out of sight because I never want to forget.