Recently, I've been called upon to digitize an amazing scrap book of the history of our area, dating back to pioneer times. As a member of the empty arms club, I think I read these stories differently than a lot of people might. Instead of hearing about it from the safe distance of time, I read from child death to child death, and there are many. Some families lost child after child. One, in particular, about killed me because she lost something like eight of her ten children plus her husband. Having been there, I imagine how it must have been to place one cold, lifeless child into the cold, lifeless dirt after another. I don't know how these women (and men) had the strength to continue. I do know those women's eyes just look tired. I can see how the loss and struggle took so much out of them. I think I would have puddled on the ground and hoped to not wake up. One woman wasn't even a pioneer and still buried child after child in the various epidemics and outbreaks, some of them three at a time. I just don't know how she survived it.
But they continued for their remaining children. I get that. That was why I had to pick myself off the ground. I moved like an automaton, going through the motions, for months and months, possibly years. Perhaps I'm still doing it. You move forward because you have to. Because there really isn't an alternative. Maybe you can escape into oblivion, sleep or depression or whatever, for a while. But eventually ,you have to move forward. I guess I can take inspiration from this. If they survived losing three, five, eight children and carried on, I can do so as well. I know they did it through their faith, through their trust that they would one day hold their angels again. And all of them are holding their lost ones now. One day, I will as well. And that thought brings me a lot of strength.
