Tuesday, June 28, 2005

And here's the apology I promised

I'm sorry.

I'm not sorry for how I feel (thanks to K for pointing out that doesn't really make sense) I'm just sorry that my anger makes me say things that make other people feel sad and uncomfortable. One of the million and one terrible things about my baby dying is that it has made other people so sad and it's made them feel so uncomfortable around me.

Yesterday I was at my sister's school for the afternoon. Obviously everyone there knows the whole story, and it became obvious when I caught a pregnant teacher staring at me with a mix of horror and morbid curiosity. She quickly looked away when I looked over at her. She practically gave herself whiplash. I wanted to dig a hole in the library floor and bury myself.

I said to my beloved the other day that we're now the people that others look at and say, "Thank God we're not them!"
It's lonely being those people - I never knew until we became them.

But back to my apology. Which isn't such a good one, I guess, but I'm trying.

I really am sorry. And I should also say that I do have a lot of happy days and good times and my life isn't as continually bleak as these blogs may portray. That's mostly because I tend to blog when I'm sad or mad. I keep telling myself I should blog when I'm happy, but I'm too busy being happy to blog. Happiness is a rare and wonderful thing for me these days and I just let myself experience it - I soak it all in. And I forget to write about it.

But the sadness is so overwhelming and the rage so strong that writing is the only thing that helps get it out of me sometimes. Well, that and flipping off slow drivers.

Believe me, I wish this wasn't what I had the urge to write about. I wish I was writing about what wonderful new thing our little Thomas did today or how he kept me up all night or how his little smile makes everything okay or how I'm so excited about seeing him walk.

But I can't. So I rage.

But I also often laugh, smile, sigh contentedly and sleep peacefully. I'm struggling, but I'm okay.

1 comment:

Me said...

"One of the million and one terrible things about my baby dying is that it has made other people so sad and it's made them feel so uncomfortable around me."

Sometimes I hate people for how unempathetic they are. As my husband has gone through significant medical maladies in the last few years, people have made themselves quite scarce. Although they've said hollow words about "Being there" for us, their absence has belied their general uncomfortableness with being around someone in pain. I hate that. I want to yell "F*** You!" A "friend" who we've basically only seen once since my husband fell ill again in 2006 called in January to chat... I thought it so odd... until she told me her husband's colitis had flared up again and he'd been very ill for several weeks. So my husband is ill for more than a year and you don't call to check in but your husband is sick for a few weeks and you call to get support. Whatever.

I'm sorry that people around you were not more supportive and less squirrely. That just sucks.