You Can Thank Stephen for this Uplifting Post
I'm the first to admit, I'm a little oversensitive. I always have been. I was the little girl who dreamed of having a shelter in which to house all the stray kitties in the world. I cried when Mom replaced our old brown refrigerator with a newer one when I was seven or eight, and I cried when Stephen traded in his green Protege for our Sonata when I was 23. I still to this day cannot bear to see dead animals in the road - and if it's a dead cat, I'll be a mess for the rest of the day. I feel badly when I squish a bug in the house. I cut myself off from watching the news a couple of years ago because I get really depressed from all the shit going on in the world; I don't care what people say, ignorance is bliss.
My mom gave me hope, though. She told me several times that once I have a child, I won't be so sensitive. My priorities will change, and I'll toughen up. I've found this has been a little true. Well, I wouldn't say I've toughened up any; I'm just too tired and distracted to think about things as much as I used to. For instance, I don't agonize much anymore over the baby ants that are going to starve and die because I killed their mother. Asher's got me on such a tight schedule that I no longer have room in my being for such consideration. Unfortunately, though, I've also become much more sensitive to other things - deeper, more important and serious things. Things that will really fuck with your mind if you think about them too much.
What has sparked this post isn't the desire to depress myself all over again, or to depress you. It's the fact that my dear, sweet husband depressed the hell out of me yesterday morning and it's the only thing I've been able to think about since then. Sometimes when something bad is in my mind, writing it down or talking about it helps me cope. So, here I am, ready to let it out. I hope it works and doesn't just anchor my heart even further in the depths of sadness.
I get to work yesterday and find an e-mail from Stephen waiting for me in my inbox. It's entitled "A Sad Story." You know what, Stephen? MY ASS BEING IN THAT GRAY CUBICLE AT 8:00 A.M. IS SAD ENOUGH. Was the sad story just supposed to be icing on my happy cake? Anyway, it was a link to local radio station WIBC's traffic lady's MySpace blog. WIBC is talk radio, and I am not known to listen to much talk radio. Stephen, on the other hand, listens to nothing else during the afternoons. He remembered Mel talking about her pregnancy and then, eventually, her baby. He quit listening, though, for that 1-2 months while he was staying at home with Asher. I guess he was shocked when he came across an ad for a memorial fundraiser* for her baby and did some further research, finding the blog.
She lost her 10 week old baby girl to SIDS in late April.
The minute I started reading her May 1st entry, I began crying there at my desk. So I stopped reading. But I had to return to it and finish it, to see how she handled this tragedy. And I've gone back three or four times since then. I only just now was able to bring myself to watch the little memorial video she has posted and look at the pictures. I'm still crying as I write this. This is all I've been able to think about since I read that stupid e-mail from Stephen. I can't begin to describe how much I want to hug this girl, how my heart absolutely aches for her loss. I think about Asher and I can't imagine anything ever happening to him. I can't even possibly begin to grasp a concept of the world continuing to turn if he were gone. I can imagine myself dying; I simply cannot fathom my baby dying.
So SIDS is nothing new, and people lose their children all the time. Of course it's sad, but why the heck am I so worked up about this one case, especially when I don't even know the girl? I don't know. Maybe it's because her daughter shares the same name as my niece, Ella, and it reminded me of how worried I was about Ella when she was a baby. Maybe it's because this is the first SIDS story I've heard since I had Asher. Maybe it's because I'm extremely paranoid (like most parents) that he'll mysteriously die in his sleep, but then I tell myself, no no no that could never happen, it only happens theoretically in those parenting books, and then finding out that YEAH HELLO it does happen, dumbass, it happens to regular people, even to a cute young girl on the radio, and it could even happen to you. What a complete slap in the face from reality. Maybe what really scares the shit out of me is the fact that I'm going to be sensitive like this for THE REST OF MY LIFE, realizing the fact that, as much as we try to keep our babies safe, as much as we follow all of those safety guidelines and rules, in the whole scheme of things we have VERY LITTLE control over what happens to our children. Right now, stories about SIDS hit too close to home, since it's obviously a current fear of mine. In sixteen years, I'll hear about teens dying in car accidents and I'll have to be sent numerous times to the looney bin for heavy medication. All the stories of toddlers being disemboweled by swimming pool filters, run over by their parents accidentally in the driveway, being shot by heartless criminals....How the hell do you do it? How do you tune all the bad stuff out? If you can't lay the fear to rest, how do you learn to live with the fear without it completely taking control of your sanity? How am I going to restrain myself from turning Asher's room into a giant plastic bubble? He can forget about learning to crawl, walk, or swim, let alone DRIVE. I shudder just thinking about that one.
I knew parenthood was going to be exhausting, frustrating, exciting, joyous, nervewrecking, and difficult. But I had no idea how FRIGHTENING it was going to be. I had no idea I'd FREAK OUT every time I heard about something bad happening to someone else's kid. And it just keeps getting scarier and scarier every day as I fall in love with my child even more.
*If you click to view Mel's profile on MySpace and scroll down a little, you'll see the obituary listed. She apparently did not have life insurance for her baby - another very sad factor to this situation - so memorial funds are set up for her to cover the final expenses and the remainder that they receive will go toward SIDS research. Details are listed if you're interested in contributing.
My mom gave me hope, though. She told me several times that once I have a child, I won't be so sensitive. My priorities will change, and I'll toughen up. I've found this has been a little true. Well, I wouldn't say I've toughened up any; I'm just too tired and distracted to think about things as much as I used to. For instance, I don't agonize much anymore over the baby ants that are going to starve and die because I killed their mother. Asher's got me on such a tight schedule that I no longer have room in my being for such consideration. Unfortunately, though, I've also become much more sensitive to other things - deeper, more important and serious things. Things that will really fuck with your mind if you think about them too much.
What has sparked this post isn't the desire to depress myself all over again, or to depress you. It's the fact that my dear, sweet husband depressed the hell out of me yesterday morning and it's the only thing I've been able to think about since then. Sometimes when something bad is in my mind, writing it down or talking about it helps me cope. So, here I am, ready to let it out. I hope it works and doesn't just anchor my heart even further in the depths of sadness.
I get to work yesterday and find an e-mail from Stephen waiting for me in my inbox. It's entitled "A Sad Story." You know what, Stephen? MY ASS BEING IN THAT GRAY CUBICLE AT 8:00 A.M. IS SAD ENOUGH. Was the sad story just supposed to be icing on my happy cake? Anyway, it was a link to local radio station WIBC's traffic lady's MySpace blog. WIBC is talk radio, and I am not known to listen to much talk radio. Stephen, on the other hand, listens to nothing else during the afternoons. He remembered Mel talking about her pregnancy and then, eventually, her baby. He quit listening, though, for that 1-2 months while he was staying at home with Asher. I guess he was shocked when he came across an ad for a memorial fundraiser* for her baby and did some further research, finding the blog.
She lost her 10 week old baby girl to SIDS in late April.
The minute I started reading her May 1st entry, I began crying there at my desk. So I stopped reading. But I had to return to it and finish it, to see how she handled this tragedy. And I've gone back three or four times since then. I only just now was able to bring myself to watch the little memorial video she has posted and look at the pictures. I'm still crying as I write this. This is all I've been able to think about since I read that stupid e-mail from Stephen. I can't begin to describe how much I want to hug this girl, how my heart absolutely aches for her loss. I think about Asher and I can't imagine anything ever happening to him. I can't even possibly begin to grasp a concept of the world continuing to turn if he were gone. I can imagine myself dying; I simply cannot fathom my baby dying.
So SIDS is nothing new, and people lose their children all the time. Of course it's sad, but why the heck am I so worked up about this one case, especially when I don't even know the girl? I don't know. Maybe it's because her daughter shares the same name as my niece, Ella, and it reminded me of how worried I was about Ella when she was a baby. Maybe it's because this is the first SIDS story I've heard since I had Asher. Maybe it's because I'm extremely paranoid (like most parents) that he'll mysteriously die in his sleep, but then I tell myself, no no no that could never happen, it only happens theoretically in those parenting books, and then finding out that YEAH HELLO it does happen, dumbass, it happens to regular people, even to a cute young girl on the radio, and it could even happen to you. What a complete slap in the face from reality. Maybe what really scares the shit out of me is the fact that I'm going to be sensitive like this for THE REST OF MY LIFE, realizing the fact that, as much as we try to keep our babies safe, as much as we follow all of those safety guidelines and rules, in the whole scheme of things we have VERY LITTLE control over what happens to our children. Right now, stories about SIDS hit too close to home, since it's obviously a current fear of mine. In sixteen years, I'll hear about teens dying in car accidents and I'll have to be sent numerous times to the looney bin for heavy medication. All the stories of toddlers being disemboweled by swimming pool filters, run over by their parents accidentally in the driveway, being shot by heartless criminals....How the hell do you do it? How do you tune all the bad stuff out? If you can't lay the fear to rest, how do you learn to live with the fear without it completely taking control of your sanity? How am I going to restrain myself from turning Asher's room into a giant plastic bubble? He can forget about learning to crawl, walk, or swim, let alone DRIVE. I shudder just thinking about that one.
I knew parenthood was going to be exhausting, frustrating, exciting, joyous, nervewrecking, and difficult. But I had no idea how FRIGHTENING it was going to be. I had no idea I'd FREAK OUT every time I heard about something bad happening to someone else's kid. And it just keeps getting scarier and scarier every day as I fall in love with my child even more.
*If you click to view Mel's profile on MySpace and scroll down a little, you'll see the obituary listed. She apparently did not have life insurance for her baby - another very sad factor to this situation - so memorial funds are set up for her to cover the final expenses and the remainder that they receive will go toward SIDS research. Details are listed if you're interested in contributing.
2 comments:
You're mom is right, it sounds cold but things get easier as your kids get older and although you'll always worry about them, you'll be more excited about them doing well then the doom and gloom.
I know what you're going through, Kim. Although I don't think I'm as paranoid as you are all the time (hey, you said it!), when I hear stories like that, I can't help but put ourselves in that situation. And I unfortunately have a very vivid imagination, so I can all too easily imagine losing Rowan or Jeff and how horrible that would be and that I would want to just die myself.
I've also noticed that having Rowan makes me so much more sympathetic to people who have lost children. A woman I know lost two children in infancy, and I now understand her so much more than I did before. We've had this large life experience that kind of bonds us with other parents to an extent. I think it's actually a good thing.
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