Sad faced woman

She did that often.  Sat in a daze, her heart and mind numbed.  Numbed by people who went about their business as if things were normal.

 Nothing was normal, now.  She knew this. Beyond a doubt, and never would be again.

The three-year-old daughter felt dizzy as if her world had become unbalanced, though she couldn't express this to anyone.  Even when the new baby boy came a year later, it did not help.  He cried too much, and the daydreaming woman who held him to her breast did nothing to comfort him.   No sweet murmurings, or gentle singing.  The sadness, streaming from her eyes, was to become a part of all of their lives.

The husband watched, sympathy creeping into his eyes.  He was helpless.  And he felt the loneliness that was to become the defining factor of his marriage.

 Nothing could shake this woman's mourning.  The doctor had said the best thing for her would be for her to have another baby as soon as possible, and the husband had seen that she became pregnant, though there had been no thrill in the doing of it.

 In the days before the baby died, he found her body responding to his touch in spontaneous and uncontrollable ways, that made him feel like an expert lover. He missed that side of her more than he could say,  and often ached for those nights, dreaming of her sighs and her muffled screams.  Now, when they made love, all he heard were a few small moans and her attempt at controlling her tears.

She was fearful of allowing herself to be happy again.  Fearful of the bad news that was bound to come.  Her jaw locked.  Her teeth clenched.  She drifted away from him, and his lovemaking.  She wanted to drift away from her own self too but then did not want to, no not ever drift away.  She had to feel some pain for what had occurred.

Why had she not seen the signs? Was it the frenzy of  Christmas, and the unbridled joy she felt about her life?  Her perfect little life?  That was probably it.  God felt her pride swelling, and pride was one thing He would not allow....it was God's judgment of her happiness that had caused the baby girl to die.

Sometimes, as the adult I am today, I wonder:  Did I, as that three-year-old, absorb my mother's grief?  Was I always trying to help cheer her up?   Is this why I become so infuriated with anyone who is not able to choose joy?   I  am supposed to be loving and kind toward others, all others, and yet, seeing and hearing others complain about their lives makes me lose my temper.

You know, after Mama died, my sister said she became angry when she'd see mothers and daughters arguing.  She said she just wanted to shout at them. "Wake up fools, stop yelling.   Look at how lucky you are! "

It never feels quite like a blessing when we are in the throws of an argument with a loved one.  But to one who has lost a parent, it feels as if you've been cut off from everything, even your own identity.  As if, like a dead and crumpled leaf, you've become unhinged from your source, abruptly let go to float into a gully of sorrow.

 I was 29 and had a husband and three sons, and I felt completely lost.  As if my view of the world no longer mattered.  As if I myself had somehow drifted into a fog bank.  How could I be, anything to anyone, without my anchor?

My sister was 18 and is still, at age 65, suffering from the loss far more than I am.  She says she was not aware of the fact that Mama was going to die.  Makes us all try to imagine how Daddy felt when at age 12 his 36-year-old mother died and then the following year when he was 13, his 42-year-old father.  How lost and completely broken did those 6 children feel?   How deep did those wounds go?

And the sad-faced woman, whose 4-month-old baby's, (ten pounds at birth) life had been sucked out of her, how did she feel?  We can not imagine.

 Christmas morning laughter, a new doll in the arms of the three-year-old.   The babe with a little rattle in her chest, growing worse in the night and then panic and that long trip to the hospital only to leave hours later empty handed?  How did that feel?   Walking back into the apartment and hugging the three-year-old to their chests?    How completely overwhelmed they must have been.  Was there screaming?  Most likely not. They were not the screaming type. Was God admonished?  Most likely, but quietly,  most certainly.  The mother said later, when the three-year-old was grown, that she had been shocked out of her morose demeanor after a lucid dream about losing her husband.  She awoke from that vivid nightmare drenched in sweat and praising God for his mercy.  And she began to smile again, for the first time in months.

 Sad-faced people crawl away from the rest of us because we are too loud, too cheerful, too innocently happy, and complaining about things that do not matter. When you see a sad-faced person, stop your smiling and move on.  They don't want your sympathy or your help.  They are content to stay sad, some for a lifetime.

On the lips of the sad-faced woman when she herself was dying, were words of "just hoping to live long enough" to see her youngest daughter "settled."  Which meant married and not so much "on the loose."   Also, I am told, when her husband died ten years later, he mentioned the same daughter, wishing he could have seen his only granddaughter before he died.     But he was too far away, of his own choosing, and it was much too late by then.  He was dying when he left, and he chose to go to be with his siblings.

There was a bond between those six siblings that none of the rest of us could ever dream of duplicating, so in the end, he chose to die near them rather than near us.