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Thursday, January 24, 2008

Crying on the bus

And then one day, you're on a crowded bus, hugging your duffle bag to your chest because all the seats are full, and the song your brother wrote for two special babies comes onto your mp3 player, and all you can do is let the tears flow even though you have no kleenex to wipe them and people are glancing at you and wondering if they should intrude or leave you all alone in your weepiness.

All you can think about is that season of loss before your particular verse of that song had any inspiration to exist. When you waited for weeks in the hospital, hoping against hope that your little one would see the light of day. And then living through that horrible, horrible moment when the downfallen look on your doctor's face as he looked at the ultrasound told the story you didn't want to hear. Followed by the phone call to your husband at work, when he answered the phone so cheerily and you had to tell him. The. baby. is. dead.

And the most vivid memory the song evokes is that day you first heard the song in your living room and you clung to your sister-in-law in your shared loss and longed for the day when the skies seemed a little more blue for both of you and hope peeked in your window to lighten the shadows of grief and pain.

And those thoughts can only lead you to one place. Jack.

And you pray through your tears, with every ounce of earnestness you can muster, "please PLEASE don't let there be another verse to that song."

And you know without a doubt that if falling to your knees on that bus full of people meant that the prayer had any more power, you would do it in an instant.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

OR walking through fire or standing and shaking your fists at the sky or standing on your head or learning Sanskrit or giving all that you have to feed the poor or quitting your job and spending your life handing out coffee to homeless crack addicts ...

Lord Jesus, spare them. Spare us. Let our suffering have been enough. Spare them.

Linda said...

Oh Heather. You've got me in tears.

Anonymous said...

Oh Heather. Jack has the same due date as my baby. I'm bawling and sending the most earnest prayers I can.

My thoughts are with all of you.

joyce said...

*
can't say nothing.
I wish more people would just cry when its the right time to cry.

ccap said...

Crying at my desk.

Anvilcloud said...

Thanks for sharing. You do know how to blog.

mmichele said...

amen to all of the above. love to you.

overheard on a bus said...

That's a sad story, but you might have opened some of the eyes of the other people on the bus and helped them feel a little emotion that day.

btw the above comment, all the Chinese is spam / seo, id recommend erasing it.