Three punches

Some days it just seems to come in waves.

First, I'm reading a great book, Marie Antoinette by Antonia Fraser. This morning a passage of a 7 year old princess's passing just got to me. I thought, I could *never* have lived back in the days of high infant mortality. Never.

Then, I read an e-mail from my mother, and she says something about one of her friend's three-year old daughter, Hannah, who was born the same month my first pregnancy was due. "She's three," my mother writes, and that just brings tears to my eyes. I could have three year olds. My eyes quickly went to my pictures of E and M, that surround me every day. I know things turned out ok, but they kind of sucked for a while, and my tears are for the days that sucked.

Finally, the tsunami. News of a miscarriage after a loss. Damn. I want to throw up. I want to say, "I know how you feel," but I don't, not really. I cry anyway, but nothing I do can make it better. As my first two waves show, even time can't take away the pain. It just dims and transforms into something different, something subtler and harder to define. It may make us tougher. It may make us wiser. It may make us more vulnerable. It definitely makes us more compassionate. But it just never goes away.