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Mama's Lullaby for Anne

adapted from Pink Floyd's Thin Ice

Mama loves her baby

Daddy loves her too

What a sweet & warm little girl

With eyes sparkling blue

ooooh ooooh babe

ooooh ooooh babe...

While I repeatedly sang Pink Floyd's little lullaby to my tiny NICU baby, I never sang her the rest of the song:

If you should go skating

On the thin ice of modern life

Dragging behind you the silent reproach

Of a million tear stained eyes

Don't be surprised, when a crack in the ice

Appears under your feet

You slip out of your depth and out of your mind

With your fear flowing out behind you

As you claw the thin ice...

But I did sing the rest of it in my mind's ear becasue I knew as I beheld her preciously perfect trisomy 18 body, that my days with her were precarious. I'd gone out on a patch of thin ice for her; I loved her past the sane point, not only in healthcare & medical sanity, but in the depths of emotional love as well... The song is a beautiful song that I miss singing to my baby. Moreover, I often feel like I'm clawing the thin ice from the underside. Has God cast me under the bus?

As the 2-yr mark of Anne's death approaches, those around me expect that I should be dancing dandy. There aren't words to describe the isolated, lonely distress I've been under. They have no idea how much harder it gets as the years roll on; the abandoned neglect that makes the heartache deeper...

We live in an abortionist's world where babies are insignificant losses. The fact that I've buried two means very little to anyone (including my own mother). Apparently, I'm supposed to cheer up carry on, and act like all the rest of the heartless world that neither notices nor cares. It's not like I lost either of them in their older years, so in their eyes I haven't really lost anything. My mother & sister both express snide remarks about how motherhood's not all it's cracked up to be (don't I know it as my son screams radical profanities at me).

So I sit in our exchange of insignificant conversation during our weekly lunch outings realizing that they don't really grasp the depth or dimension of what I've buried. They totally fail to understand that my ill-behaved niece is 19 months older than Abigail, and while she drives her mother nuts with her whining & pestering, they all fail to grasp that I would give an arm to have even one of mine back. My own beautiful, dark-haired, sparkly-eyed child is not supposed to be a silent corpse under the ground. No one takes notice of my bleeding heart as my niece plays in the restaurant fountain or makes a mess with her milk. Which one of them even bothers to remember my children, let alone care what suffering the lunch time experience brings upon me?

Moreover, I often wonder if I couldn't have made better progress in the grieving journey if my son hadn't done all he could to make the trip so agonizing. He's heartless; compassion-less; cruel; insensitive... He reminds me that I've done nothing for the world but raise up another jerk. It's been sheer torture to grieve my daughters AND endure the incredibly hostile disrespect that comes from my living child. He needs to be put out of my home, but I know not how to make it so. Where would he go? He has no relatives that will help. He refuses to go to school. He refuses to get a job. He refuses to go see a doctor, pastor or priest. He refuses to contribute. He refuses to be kind. I refuse to keep living like this. My health can't take it; I'll be lucky to see 50 at the rate my health is crumbling...

Ironically, he could live off of us forever if only he'd exhibit some sort of compassionate demeanor. But I am at my wits end for being thoroughly sick of his hostile abuse, but I don't know how to change it. His verbal abuse is killing me, and what's worse is I think he's doing it intentionally. I'm so very heart broken that two of my children are dead, and the third exhibits such ugliness that I can't stand to be in the same room with him.

What's more, he brings out the total coward in my husband. I had no idea I was married to a man with such inability to rescue his wife from the abuses inflicted upon her by our son. There are two fully grown men living in my home and both of them are like pathetic immature 14 year olds. My 22nd anniversary approaches and I look back over the years and ask myself, "what have I to show for any of it?"

It's no wonder I absolutely & completely anguish over all the sweet & wonderful girlie kisses that I planted in the ground; all the cuddles that are lost forever. Ben hasn't been cuddly since his elementary years--a very very long time ago. In fact, I haven't had a real life hug in so long I think I might shrivel up and die. I don't know what I did to make the boy hate me so much; I'd redo it if I could. He knows I'd do anything for him. He knows he's the only thing I get out of bed for. But he's just plain mean, and he just doesn't care. I mourn over his godlessness.

I beg God to give me answers and give me strength. And yet, I can't remember the last time God actually answered one of my earnest prayers. Ben screams at me that prayer is a waste of time. The events in our lives the last many years would prove his opinion correct. I mean, all those prayers for Abigail and Anne and look how they were answered...

So how do I convince him that God really does listen; that He really does care; that He really does love us??? How do I convince myself?

I'm sorry, but today's one of those days where I absolutely and completely hate my life.