Simmering in Sad

I don't do sadness well when I am tired. It seems to linger where I'm forced to think about it. It's not a comfortable thing, but perhaps it is good.

Our world is an unbelievably harsh and violent place. I lose sight of that because I am largely removed from it. My day-to-day existence isn't one of constant struggle or constant fear. The news bombards us with atrocities on such a scale that it's difficult to personalize them. No human death should be a statistic, and for some family somewhere it most definitely is not reduced to that. Sometimes though, it takes thinking like the victim to understand that there is pain involved. Without first-hand experience, it is probably impossible to feel the intensity of the shock or the sadness, but I like to think I get closer than I would simply watching a broadcast, then listening to some company hawk their wares as though spending money should always follow deep and painful loss.

I learned more about a woman today who has come to be a friend of mine. It's taken some work. Her native language is not English, and at times I still have difficulty understanding her. But the story she told me today just reached down to my gut. Because from the minute I laid eyes on my sons, I was deeply and eternally in love with both those little guys. Totally immersed, totally bathed in the sheer joy of them, and if I'd awakened and found them to be a newborn dream, I would have felt a sense of loss.

Imagine giving birth to a baby, holding it close, filling all the senses with the wonder of new life, and then someone taking the infant from you and giving the child to someone else. I don't know if those in charge felt they'd explained what would be happening or not, but D didn't have a clue. It was a complete and total shock that the baby was taken and that no one would tell her by whom or where the baby was going. Here one moment, gone the next, and never once a chance to prepare for that inevitability.

But even with a chance to prepare--how does one prepare for heartache that cuts that deep?

I tried to imagine what I'd do, just how heartbroken and angry and desperate I would be. Probably to the point that "they" would have thought me crazy and all the more justified in taking such a horrific action. Then to live for the past 41 years never knowing where the child was, who he was with, what he had grown up to become. One never stops being a mother, even if the child is no longer there.

It just boggles my mind, that even though the era of slavery is over, (and witnessing the aftermather, the horrendous and long-lasting effects of destroying families) that families are still torn apart like this, and the thinking is that everyone involved is well served by it. I'm not anti-adoption, because when a mother doesn't want a child, she has no business trying to rear one (and has no business allowing herself to become pregnant in the first place, but that's another issue). No child should grow up unwanted. But to force a young mother to carry a baby to term, go through labor and delivery, and then to more-or-less steal the child against her wishes--that's criminal. Yet it was so common. Honestly. I'd like to think we know better now, but I have to doubt.

My respect for D grows the longer I know her. She has every reason to be closed off, bitter and cranky. Sometimes she can be a little difficult. Can't we all? Most of the time, though, she's generous, appreciative, and smiling and she is so eager to reach out, learn new things and know new people. Amazing. Because this is just one story of heartache and for me the worst. But the others weren't exactly a piece of cake either.

What a crazy world. I am so grateful for my refuge and the opportunity to share it with D.