You can call me, you can text me, you can message me, you can send me a letter via snail mail in a pink dinosaur's backpack. I don't care. Do it. And do it especially if you think you're a horrible person. I'm here to serve and I'll be the first to tell you that you're not horrible. You're not wrong. You're NORMAL. And any of you who HAVE talked to me can hear the sarcasm dripping off THAT word! If you've ever talked or read more than 6 words from me you'll know how I despise our so called normal above all things except death itself.
You can tell me how "rude" you were to the lady who said whatever the frig ugly old platitude she pulled out of her filthy black bag of platitudes. It's not rude, it's the camel's back breaking straw. You can tell me how you couldn't handle doing or going or hearing or seeing or watching or being. I can't either sometimes. You can come over and blow snot all over my couch for all I care, mine already landed there a few hundred times and I know what causes the infestation. I'll probably join you, I have Kleenex. You can sidle up to me and hopefully ask me to make you feel worse about doing or not doing whatever it was you think you should or shouldn't have done. Nope, I don't heap guilt on top of hurt. You can curse and swear and scream and blubber and wail and rant and rave. It won't faze me. I already heard it all from myself.
This is why I won't tell you you're wrong. I know how dastardly bad you felt when you did what you did or couldn't do what you didn't. I understand and I care because I know what it feels like to feel like an idiot. But know what? You're not. I'm not. None of us are. We have babies that aren't here. We collectively have felt the heart wrenching. We implicitly understand what it means when we hear about somebody somewhere who got a fatal diagnosis for their baby or who heard that there was no heartbeat or held their baby while he died.
That is why I'll never criticize you for feeling your feelings. I'll listen. I'll talk. I'll text. I'll message. I'll visit. I'll mail random weird packages full of stuff, sometimes on time and sometimes missing the mark by a day or six. But I will never tell you you're horrid. I'll never say you shouldn't have done what you did because you felt what you felt at that moment in time or that you should have done what you couldn't. No matter how you try to convince me otherwise it won't work. I'll use the same twisted logic on you that my sister used on me and tell you that you're an awesome caring person whose baby died and you don't get to be hard on yourself because you feel it to the depths of your bone marrow. Some days it makes you puke and flee and weep and wail and swear and act like a raging maniac at Walmart because you saw they were selling preemie outfits.
And that's okay. Because, repeat it with me, "It's normal." and I'm here with a life ring to throw you so you can get a breath between waves. You're not horrible, and next time you think you are, tell yourself that I said so.
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