Now I know

*If you don't want to know this about me, please don't read it. I hope if you do read it, you won't think less of me. But this is my little world, however up and down and while I can usually get the best of it, sometimes I can't.

I don't mean for it to happen, yet it does. Sometimes it is like a cockroach, I catch a glimpse of it and its gone but I know I can't see what is lurking in the darkness. Sometimes it is ants, marching across my mind, a thin black line that I can't seem to get rid of, but I can follow back to the origin of the source.

Today I spent the better part of the day in an ER with Jack. A bad fall, some vomiting, sleepiness and we sat in the ER at the children's hospital for the next four hours. He is fine, although I will be getting up every 2-4 hours tonight. But fine won't account for the memories.

Sometimes sadness is so much a part of my mind that I don't know where it stops. Some days I am so sad I can't remember being happy. But only some days. I don't always know what triggers it, but sometimes I lay in bed and listen to my kids breathing and I am so grateful that they are mine. All four of them, under the same roof. And then I think about those who aren't together, or grateful. And there is the sadness. Maybe its true, maybe sadness is like water, and covers 70% of the earth. Maybe sometimes we live near the ocean and sometimes we just pass glimpses of a stream.

Some days, I think about the kids, the ones that don't know love, the ones who only see their parents on the last few days of their lives. Or the ones who felt so much pain in their short existence that it is a wonder they even tried at all. The ones who were blamed for things beyond their control. The ones who cried at the slightest touch, because it was never good. Or the ones that live with the knowledge that if someone dies they will live.

Or I think about the parents. And then I hear the words. I can close my eyes and hear at least five different voices say, "No, no, no, NO." Or the other words, "I just sent out her birthday party invitations." "I wasn't always a good mom." "I'm so, so sorry." With the adults it is the words I hear, the apologies, explanations, denials.

Then I feel sad. I just didn't know, I didn't know that there was so much sadness. I didn't know that some kids don't feel love until they are in heaven. I didn't know that some parents have to live with their heart having been ripped from their chests. I didn't know, but now I do.