There's just too much going on in my mind--and heart--today. Which is why I took off for lunch early. Sitting in the mall with my laptop as my security blanket.
Today is my sister's birthday. She would have been 28. The picture above is of her and my daughter at the hospital. She had stopped by on her lunch break to see the new baby.
The week has been hard, but the what-ifs are always harder. I can't quite seem to shake the what ifs and I'm riddled with guilt over not being by her side during her final lucid moments. It's something that has been gnawing at me for four years now.
She spent the last few weeks of her life in a drug-induced coma at a hospital. These days, I sort of despise hospitals for what they symbolize in my life. After being misdiagnosed several times with a tension headache, my sister was finally correctly diagnosed with encephalitis.
But, by that time, the infection had spread to all of her organs and her body had already started slipping away. Thing is, more than 95 percent of these cases are treated with a positive outcome.
So, lastnight made it even more difficult. Baby R fell of off some stairs and pretty much slammed his head into a concrete ground. We took him to the ER and sat for some time. When we left, he was fine. I was thanking God that he was fine. He was fine, although I wasn't fine, really. Hospitals=heart ache for me.
This morning, my son heard me mention that it was my sister's birthday. This is my 3-year-old, who I was three-months pregnant with when she died.
"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you!" he began singing. When I didn't respond, he stopped and asked me, "Why you not singing happy birthday, mommy? You not happy?"
"I'm happy," I told him. "I'm just a little sad." He just gave me a strange look and said "You going to your cheerleader job today?"
And I cracked a smile. Three-year-olds say things that heal the heart. Even when they don't make any sense at all.
Mr. E was the only happy one at the hospital lastnight. He seemed to think it was Disney World. He cried when we left.
See how much fun the sitting and waiting was?
Baby R. He was not a happy boy.
