Paranoid

When a mom has lost a baby--or maybe I should just say since I lost a baby--everything that may harm or endanger one of the remaining children is terrifying.  Many people identify with this Disney princess or that Disney prince.  At one time, I identified with Belle and Mulan.  Now, I'm Marlin from "Finding Nemo" and its sequel.  Well, Marlin and Dory since one of the symptoms of mourning is forgetfulness.  A helicopter parent is more standoffish than I usually feel when I take my kids into public.  I'm a fighter drone parent, hovering as close as it's possible to my kids without riding their shoulders.  My greatest fear is more loss.  I've read John Douglas's FBI perspective on violent crimes.  Some part of me fears that the second I leave my kids unguarded, they'll become another headline, another statistic.

I'm right now reading Jenny Hess's In His Hands,  a book about an LDS mom's loss of her little boy.  They went sledding on a family vacation, and the boy and his dad hit a tree.  The boy died of the impact.  I'm going to have a hard time letting my kids go sledding after this.  I feel empathy for that mom.  I can't imagine losing a child at the age of four or later when you've actually had the time to get to know them.  But I really get what it is to have all the trust, all the safety you imagined there to be in the world, shattered over loss.  Most people who haven't lost children walk through their lives imagining a safety bubble around their kids.  It's not possible to lose a child because they haven't yet.  It's not even a possibility.  That was me before I lost Alli.  Now, I imagine horrors behind every corner.  I would do almost anything to avoid loss again.

My girl is napping in the other room with flu.  It's all I can do not to shake her awake because I've heard the phrase "flulike symptoms" altogether too many times in those articles about sudden and medically flukish deaths.  I know she needs her rest.  But I don't rest well when there is any danger at all to my kids.

I'm sure I'm not alone.  My logical side knows all the fear, all the worry, in the world won't protect them.  I know only the Lord can protect them, and only He can decide whether they stay or go.  When my girl was three--just after Alli died--she had a seizure on the beach.  I was so freaked out that loss was happening again.  I got a priesthood blessing that told me my kids had missions on this life, that they had a higher purpose.   I've come back to that many times when I've been overcome with fear for any reason.  I keep telling myself they will be fine.  But I still have to fight off that fear, that understanding one loss means there can be others.  It would be nice to go back to a trust that my kids have a safety bubble.  But I can't.  All I can do is pray and move forward, hoping whatever their missions are in this life will take a very, very long time.

Near loss

We lost a dog a couple of weeks ago, as you may have read.  This week, we thought we lost another four-legged friend.  A cat knocked over a cage, shattering it, then attacked our sweet baby bearded dragon.  We found the dragon, looking shaken and acting near death on the floor.  We've only had her for about a month, but I've already grown quite attached to her.  I was sure she was going to die that night.  I held her, hoping she would not die.  The next morning, my boy reported she was dead for so she seemed to be.  We mourned her.  The thoughts of what I could have done to avoid another death haunted me as we tried to do fun, family activities that day.  That night, my boy discovered the beardie was actually alive.  She's acting now like she's going to live.  We view her survival as a miracle.

This may seem like a trivial incident to an outsider, but it was not to us.  It is a frightening thing to come so near loss of any sort after suffering so much of it.  I think that's true of anyone who has had a series of losses.  There are few things in life more frightening than the fear of more pain associated with loss.  We're breathing easier now that we know she'll be okay.  But I still feel shaken with the reminder that pain can come at any time, in any way, even from unexpected sources.