Yeah, I know I started it the 30 posts in 30 days - I make no excuses, this is my place and I should do just what I damn well want to...
I found the 'why not me' post, I was wrong in thinking it was a Glow post - but I found it.
Read it again.
I too used to think I was lucky, no more than that, I thought I'd made my own luck; I lived a blessed life. This life that everyone envied, I fitted the 'perfect life mould', everyone said so and I truly did count my lucky stars.
I took what life had to throw at me and I landed on my feet.
I was young, fit and healthy.
I met and married a handsome, gentle and very smart man who makes me a better person.
I traveled the world quite literally; was able to feed that passion through work and later, through A's work. The work I did love - it payed for the travels and allowed me to drop everything and go.
We followed a dream to live here in Australia and I love where I live, there is nothing I could want.
My friends are fantastic support, I am honoured to know them and call them so.
I loved my family and we're all very close and there are no silly feuds.
I'd had not known death, of family, of a loved one....
Until now.
No one will ask me how many children I have, it is clear on the outside I have none. I am a new face; not familiar, not known to anyone - so why would anyone bother to ask me why the long face, why the unsure eye contact and a sadness surrounding me like a thick black veil.
I want to say her name out loud; 'Elizabeth, my beautiful daughter.... She died'. I want her recognised for the little girl she'll never be, the wayward teen, the young woman, the wife, mother, grandma that will never be. Mostly I want them to know she was here and I love her.
The world is unfair. Why me? Why Elizabeth? Why Taggpole? Why us? Why our family?
They are of course unanswerable and unrelenting. But I didn't have to come to the conclusion of 'why not me?' by myself. I stumbled on it and it did speck to me - why not me?
Why did I think I had been singled out to suffer this? We are all the same, living with what life throws at us, trying to survive and do the best by ourselves - I am no better than anyone else in that respect. I came to the conclusion that everything is random.
I didn't pray to the wrong God
There is no 'grand plan' to anything
There is no rightful 'order' of things
There is no karma
There is no fate
Horoscopes, superstitions are utter crap
There are no magic falling stars to grant wishes
There is no lucky four leaf clover to find
I didn't break mirrors
There is no playing by the right set of rules - who rules are they anyway?
And I've certainly not got the fallout from failings in other areas of my life
We can only control so much of our lives - the rest is random. That is what I've got to get my head around and accept; why not me?
Then the helplessness of it all comes back to hit me full force in the chops...
I wrote about the "Why Not Me" thing as well a while ago - and while I totally get it logically, and understand it, and would LOVE to live by it, all the time - most of the time I'm still bogged down in the "why me, why us." it's just too heartbreaking for me to be totally zen about it all the time, though I'd love to be.
ReplyDeleteI wear a necklace with Otis' name engraved on it, and I feel like in some ways it allows me to speak his name aloud, all the time, because I too look like a childless woman, and no one has any reason to ask me about children, sadly.
Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI found again the link to the 'why not me' post from reading your back posts, thank you.
Although I've had well over a month to have those thoughts running around my head, please don't think that it is accepted by any stretch of the imagination. More over its got to be drilled into my head and is something to aspire to - to me its the only way to make any sense from Elizabeth's death. I have no one to blame, to be angry at - so I choose to be mad at the world in general and depersonalise it.
I love how your necklace allows you to speak Otis' name, that is a real treasure - saying our babies names and sharing them so the world can see they were here is a great thing, a very emotional thing too.
It fascinates mangos similar baby lost mothers are in our thinking. I remember going to a support group and saying just that, I want to speak her name and tell you about my baby girl,Eva. Recently, now that a near three months have gone by I find myself having strong urges to speak her name. Almost like having a tourettes attack, Eva. I love that my iPod (that I use the Internet on) knows her name and always tries to capitalize her name when I forget.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your beautiful Elizabeth!!
-Sadie