sharing loss knows no stranger

sweet woman stranger i met last night, i am so deeply sorry for your loss.

i ache with the thought of where your heart is right now.

i tremble with the idea of where your mind will take you in the next few days.

i mourn with you over the passing of your 9 month old beautiful emma...

i understand your tears, i "hear" what your eyes say to me, what your shoulders and head so low speak, louder than any words...the weight they carry is tremendous.

i cried with you, for you and thought of you all the way home, about your sweet emma.

i know your soul's despair, i recognize your numbness...i still stare into the floor too all the time, forgetting that life is going on about me...ignoring the laughter, the meaningless banter that goes on, the empty living and choices i see being made all around me...

i, too, begged, pleaded and asked for it to be me instead...i, too, in an INSTANT realized the empty meaningless value of worldly possessions when i would have, too, given them all away to have her back. i, too, sweet friend was ready to make a deal with the devil to bring her back.

i heard your cries, the wailing, the intense soul's uncontrollable scream that exited your body without any effort as you ran out of the room,  it literally shook me to see you empty your soul like that, a too familiar feeling, it made me want to die on the floor with you, hold you and sweep up your tears with my shirt, my hair, anything...just to help, and i don't even know you....i have cried that cry, i recognized that cry last night, just as a song reminds someone of a first love or childhood memory, that cry reminded me of my black, dark day that my life stopped, my world stopped, the day my daughter's heart stopped. 

sweet stranger, who knows more about my heart and state of mind and a mother's loss than even any of my closest friends that are mom's, because you yourself have buried your child, just two weeks ago, laid her to rest, i know how invisible you feel and want to remain. i know your anger in seeing the world move on, seeing selfish ignorant people raise children while your's is in the ground. 

i can't begin to imagine the pain you and your husband have endured while watching your daughter suffer for nine months...the thought of feeling like you failed her, i hear that, i know that, i understand that, friend. i, too, struggle with the fact that we, as her parents, could not do anything to save our sydney...that it was out of our control...as was your precious emma's fate.

i hear your angry words, i know your confused mind and questioning spirit towards a God who lets some live and others die...i know you know a world now, like mine and many others sadly, that looks totally different to the rest of them...to those who live without perspective, who have never lost, anything at all...except themselves...i agree with your bitterness, i nod my head as you tell me that you will never see life the same ever again...that you will never be the same person you were before...i know you have an entirely new lens with which you see the world.

sweet stranger, whom i met with for only a couple hours, i long for a day that you will find peace and rest...a day that you can think of your precious emma and smile with celebration and joy over her life rather than the excruciating pain and agony that is present now in her death... 

you may be a stranger to me, emma's mommy, but i saw myself in you last night...it made me mad as hell to see another mother grieving her lost child, the insanity of loss and i dont' know why either it has to be this way...to see another woman literally broken like me, it started up the questioning all over again, fists in the air at God at why you must go through this journey...it made my world stop again to see you in yours...you are not alone. and you still are a mother. always. and emma's mommy you will forever be.