ouch

I came home from work on Monday and found a stupid walmart mass-mail in my mailbox. Normally, this would be an insignificant event that I’d forget about ten seconds after the recycle bin lid dropped. This time, however, the mail was all about getting ready to go off to college and it was addressed to my dead child.

It still went in the recycle bin, but it also ripped a chunk out of my soul on its way. I’ve been doing pretty well lately, but underneath the “pretty well"ness, there’s a deep, slowly-healing wound that can be reopened by junk mail, apparently.

I cried most of the evening. After I stopped crying, it still hurt like someone had stabbed me with a rusty railroad spike right in the gut. That feeling pretty much continued the rest of the week. Why don’t I get to sit down with Sarah and plan out her college dormitory acquisitions? Why isn’t she getting ready to go off on her own and drop me emails asking for money like all good college kids do?

I’ve managed to avoid getting bogged down in the why-me’s so far, but this really hurts. It’s not fair. Well, this kind fo feels like deja vu, so maybe I haven’t completely avoided the why-me’s, but mostly I have. Really.

Life’s not fair, blah blah. But, I think I have to recognize and deal with the pain of this particular bit of not-fairness before it eats me up.